[EM] Approval reducing to Plurality

[Juho]

Yes, approval is very good in allowing people to express their  
opinions this way. If many voters approve also T1, that also gives a  
strong message to the main parties that they maybe should adjust their  
policy in this direction.

The serious problems of Approval come into play only when there are  
more than two potential winners. As long as T1 and T2 are called  
"T" (i.e. "minor") things are fine.

Juho



On Aug 31, 2010, at 10:53 AM, Raph Frank wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 2:42 PM, Juho <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>> What is nice about approval is that even if each candidate is a
>>> centrist, the "menu" can be different in each district.   You don't
>>> just get the same 2-option menu in every district.
>>
>> What kind of election did you refer to? Did the districts maybe have
>> separate elections or separate electors to be elected, or just  
>> different set
>> of mind although the votes will be counted for the whole country?
>
> Not a specific one.  I don't know of anywhere which elects a
> legislature by approval or by condorcet.
>
> However, the principle is that it allows candidates have more varied
> combinations of policies.
>
> Assuming there are 2 issues, the 2 main parties would have a view on
> each of them.
>
> Thus the voter might be able to choose between
>
> R: Yes to both
> D: No to both
> T1: Yes to first, No to 2nd
> T2: No to first, Yes to 2nd
>
> Under plurality, a voter who wants the first policy but not the 2nd
> has to decide if blocking the 2nd policy is more important than
> passing the first one and then vote for R or D.
>
> This gets even worse as there are more options added.
>
> However, with approval/condorcet, the voter can vote for the 3rd party
> candidate which has the mix of policies that they actually want.
>
> The effect is that candidates can offer a different mix of options,
> rather than just 2 options.