[EM] What happens when Approval doesn't let you vote Favorite>Dem>Repub?

[Juho Laatu]

On 27.5.2012, at 22.37, Michael Ossipoff wrote:

> You know, that's the Condorcetists' and IRVists' objection to Approval.

The question is what happens when Approval doesn't let you vote A>B>C. The difference is that there is no division to minor and major candidates. The worst Approval problems appear when there are three or more potential winners.

> after the 1st Approval election, in which the non-Republocrat
> parties and candidates have somehow managed to make at least some people
> aware of their different platforms, policies and proposals, the count
> results are going to show many more votes for non-Republocrats, now that
> everyone, for the first time, has the freedom to rate anyone as they
> themselves choose to, and no longer constrained by the lesser-of-2-evils
> problem.

The first Approval elections in a former two-party system could go really well if we assume that the third parties won't be potential winners yet.

> Don't Democrat and Republican candidates continually offer "change"?  :-)
> They promise those things because they know that the public want those
> things.  But the public will now notice that they don't offer squat, in
> regards to those things.

This is a problem of all political systems, also when there are multiple parties. The problem may be one step worse in a two-party system where these two parties are almost guaranteed to return back to power soon, whatever they do.

Juho