[EM] Score Voting and Approval Voting not practically substantially different from Plurality?

[Kathy Dopp]

Bejamin,

I think we fundamentally agree about most things except for one statement
you made (I think you're seeing some disagreement where there is none),
which is why I'll only respond to this.

You said "Since this isn't fixed, tell me what the benefit of Approval is
in the real world over Plurality?  I want to be CLEAR about this, so please
let me: I am not asking how the what supporters of Approval voting promise
will happen, nor what Approval voting's creators intentions are - I am ONLY
asking about pragmatic and real-world RESULTS."

Me:   E.g. If people see that the number of votes for Nader are virtually
equal to those for Gore, and investigation (undistorted polling) shows that
9 out of ten of those voters preferred Nader first, and the "least favorite
candidate" was more than 10% behind,  then in the next election
mathematically, only 5% of those voters have to switch to Nader for Nader
to win and still beat the least favorite.

I.e. People are influenced by perceived public opinion and as well since
your scenario was counterfactual, it may be less likely than  cases that
are possible where approval voting ends up making it possible for small
parties to grow large and beat currently large parties.

You have no basis for claiming your counterfactual is more likely to occur
than any other and yet you want to cut off clear opportunity for building
support for smaller parties based on it?  People, or at least some people
may be able to figure out how and when to use approval voting to boost
currently smaller parties.
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