[EM] Approval strategy: never approve challengers

[Juho Laatu]

Here is one possible strategy for Approval that may be useful especially after a reform from Plurality to Approval. The idea is simply that current large party supporters should avoid accepting any of the candidates of their new rising competitors. With this strategy it is possible to at least delay the change for a while.

In the first Approval election Green voters are happy to vote for their favourite and also approve the Democrat candidate that is a good compromise for them.
06: G, D
47: D
47: R

In the next election the Green candidate is already more popular, but Democrats will not approve him since that way the Democrat candidate remains clearly more approved (D 53 vs. G 25).
25: G, D
28: D
47: R

In the following election the same pattern appears again. The Green party complains that the Democrats should approve also the Green candidate. But the Democrats just keep saying that the Green candidate is clearly not as approved as the Democrat candidate (D 53 vs. G 28).
28: G, D
25: D
47: R

I don't know what will happen after this. Will the Green voters abandon the Democrat candidate and approve only G? Or will all Democrats approve also G? Maybe some Democrat voters will approve G and some not, and D wins again. Or maybe some Green voters will not approve D, and R wins.

Despite of this catastrophic situation in the end the proposed strategy could be the correct delay strategy for the Democrat and Republican parties to follow. They should stick to their compromise candidate position (that is obvious at the beginning) as long as they can since that helps them 1) win the elections and 2) it makes them look bigger when compared to their challengers than they actually are (no second prefernce approvals given to others, but asking for second preference approvals from others).

Is this "never approve challengers" strategy a good strategy for large parties that fear that smaller nearby parties might take their position?

Juho