No subject

Approval doesn't "guarrantee" anything.  You seem to assume<br>
that the voters all fall into one of  two categories:<br>
(1) partially-informed strategists  who know that if  they don't  compromise
by voting Middle  first (in IRV) then there is a danger<br>
that  Worst will win, but don't  know  that Favourite can't win if they vote
sincerely; so maybe they'd like to vote maximum clout<br>
against Worst and leave it to other voters to decide which of  Favourite
and  Middle  actually  *wins* .<br>
(2) "semi-strategists"  who are perfectly happy and comfortable voting compromises
equal to their sincere unique favourite, but<br>
are squeamish about voting  a compromise above  their sincere favourite.<br>
<br>
In the case of  IRV, the voter might SOMETIMES be, as you say, be  "strategically
forced" (in the setting of a US presidential election)<br>
to Compromise and  falsely vote Middle above Favourite. But that is versus
having  to falsely vote compromises equal to sincere<br>
Favourite in Approval, ALL THE TIME.  That is fine if you think that order-reversal
is terrible, but order-compression is nothing.<br>
But if  you consider them both bad, and order-reversal  is only about two
or three times worse than order-compression; then  IRV<br>
looks like the much more attractive  way of voting.<br>
<br>
Consider these  further categories of voters:<br>
(3) voters who are not be interested in strategy, and so just want  a clear-cut
way of voting sincerely. Under IRV, this category <br>
would be much larger than it is under Purality, when voters appreciate IRV's
"majority for solid coalitions" and  Condorcet Loser<br>
guarrantees. This is the group who would not be Approval fans.<br>
(4) well informed  strategists, who don't mind  Compromise-strategy order-reversal.
("betraying" their favourite).This group<br>
has no real reason to prefer Approval over IRV.<br>
<br>
Chris Benham<br>
<br>
PS , another interesting excerpt from your chat with  Albert Langer (posted
Wed.Dec2,1998):<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
  <title></title>
       <tt>[MO]<br>
 Speak for yourself. Duverger's law is about Plurality, and doesn't<br>
  accurately apply to single-winner methods in general.<br>
  <br>
  Maybe some<br>
  like Plurality because it produces a 2-party system, but a better<br>
  single-winner method, one that lets people vote sincerely, wouldn't<br>
  produce a 2-party system. I claim that even the simple, modest<br>
  Approval method would bust the artificial 2-party system wide open.<br>
  <br>
  [AL]<br>
  I always do, and obviously was, speaking for myself (even when I wrote<br>
  "edit" meaning "edict" :-). Du Verger's law would not apply to "Random<br>
  Ballot" but it certainly does apply to IRO as proved for more than half<br>
  a century of experience in Australia and you have not advanced anything<br>
  resembling an argument as to why it would not apply to Approval. I<br>
  cannot even guess what your argument might be. People overwhelmingly do<br>
  vote "sincerely" (ie naively) at least as regards first preferences<br>
  under IRO in Australia and haven't got the foggiest clue about the fact<br>
  that there is something fundamentally absurd about the way votes are<br>
  counted. 20% of them sincerely vote for other parties as their first<br>
  preference and are not in the least surprised that the two major parties<br>
  always win because they understand the elementary logic that if there is<br>
  going to be only 1 winner it is going to come from one or other of the<br>
  two big parties and not from 1 of the small ones. Any fancy system that<br>
  produced a different result would be rightly perceived as just plain<br>
  anti-democratic. How could one possibly argue against parties that have<br>
  80% of the vote not reliably winning a seat? (Certainly not by<br>
  persuading them that a lottery should be used to prevent that obvious<br>
  outcome, not by pretending that some weird way of counting votes could<br>
  result in 1 or other of 2 parties with 80% support between them winning<br>
  the seat rather than 1 or other of the reamaining parties or<br>
  independents with 20% support).<br>
  <br>
  If you want representation of other parties then you have to go for PR<br>
  as in Europe.<br>
  This is just plain obvious and not worth arguing about further.<br>
  </tt></blockquote>
<a
 href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/2739">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/2739</a><br>
<br>
              <a
 href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/2805">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/2805</a><br>
<br>
Something very odd, December 98 seems to be missing from the Electorama EM
archive.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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