[EM] Approval Voting

[David L Wetzell]

In the scenario below.

From: Jonathan Denn <info at aGREATER.US>

In a three way race for POTUS. Let's say we have the traditional D and R. A
fringe third party candidate runs and is widely hated (H) by everyone
except his/her supporters. But the final results are

H 34%
D 33%
R 33%

Now the hated candidate is leader of the free world.

In Approval Voting, I think it unlikely in this hyper-partisan country that
many voters will vote for D & R, and not H. So the results might very well
be the same.

Is this a legit flaw for Approval? It seems quite plausible to me.

dlw:  But if Ds prefer Rs way over Hs and Rs prefer Ds way over Hs then
both parties could easily adopt a strategy of flipping a coin at the voting
booth and voting their approval for the other party's candidate over the Hs
candidate if they get heads.  This would then make the %s,
H: 34%
D: 49.5+e%
R: 49.5+f%

And so there'd be a 50-50 chance that either major-non-extremist party
would get elected depending on whether e><f.

Now, I believe that the economies of scale in running a big campaign tends
to make a 3-way competitive election relatively unlikely, which in turn
tends to make most alternatives to FPTP of close to the same value-added.
 This is why I believe the focus shd be on changing the mix of
single-winner and multi-winner/(quasi-)PR elections in such a way that will
tend to increase the % of competitive seats.  That'll make it so there'd be
less acrimony, since neither of the (likely two) major parties would be
able to dominate the other and so it'd be rat'l for them to cooperate to
maintain their duopolistic positions.
dlw
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