[EM] Why Disapproval Voting is better than Approval

[Ralph Suter]

Many voters would find it much easier to justify selectively giving 
disapproval votes to one or a few candidates they especially disapproved 
of even though they disapproved of all but one candidate to varying 
degrees (or maybe all candidates) than to justify giving approval votes 
to one or a few candidates they didn't approve of but disapproved of 
much less than some other candidates. The reason is simply that many 
voters would consider giving an approval vote to a candidate they really 
disapproved of dishonest, whereas they would not consider declining to 
give a disapproval vote to a candidate they disapproved of dishonest but 
rather a justifiable and perfectly honest strategic choice.

It would therefore be much easier for many voters to make the most 
rational strategic decisions in Disapproval Voting elections than in 
Approval Voting elections. For this simple reason, DV is a better voting 
method than AV, even though in other respects they are essentially 
identical.

If this is correct, it's very important to understand. Despite the 
inadequacies of DV shares with AV, it is much better than plurality and, 
in important respects, also better than Instant Runoff Voting, which is 
currently the most popular alternative voting method, at least in the 
U.S. In addition, like AV, it has the advantage of being much easier to 
implement with paper ballots than either IRV or other ranking methods 
and therefore should at least be seriously considered as a transitional 
method until more is learned about how to adequately yet relatively 
inexpensively implement ranking methods and other methods that may be 
superior to DV.

Even better than DV would be a modified DV method that would enable 
voters to check the candidate(s) they most approved of as well as those 
they strongly disapprovef of, and which would be nearly as easy to 
implement as DV and work as well or better, or at least better than 
plurality or IRV.

-Ralph Suter

robert bristow-johnson wrote:
> Should the voter Approve their 2nd choice? Their 3rd choice?