[EM] A simpler approval based way of replacing the CA jungle primary

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

On 2018-07-19 07:20, Rob Lanphier wrote:
> Thanks for the quick response!  I'll offer a quick response now, and
> maybe a more detailed response later.
> 
>>From the perspective of coming up with a system that is a politically
> viable choice for California in the near-ish term, my bias is toward a
> system that picks exactly two candidates as a replacement for our
> current top two.  Using your "LCR" notation, I'm mildly biased toward
> a system that errs on the side of selecting "LR" rather than "LC",
> since I think that a lot voters are more likely to find "LR" to be
> more fair than "LC", even though there will be some cases where "C"
> would be the winner of a one-round approval contest.  My fear is that
> with "LC", the supporters of "R" are more likely to declare the system
> unfair, and push for a repeal.
> 
> That said, you're right that it's best to allow three candidate to
> advance in the (hopefully) rare case that the two candidate set
> doesn't already include the approval winner.  If this proposal is done
> as a replacement for the current top-two system, that just means we
> have a three-way plurality race.  I haven't decided if it'd be viable
> to call for a change to approval voting for the general election as
> well.  I'll save that for a future response (and please weigh in with
> your thoughts)

I'd imagine that the more polarized things are, the more important it 
would be to keep the centrist in the running, so that there's at least a 
possibility of getting back into a less polarized state of things. E.g. 
suppose L is quite far on the left and R is quite far on the right. But 
you're right; it's impossible to do that with only two candidates if L 
and R are strong enough, since any inclusion of the centrist would be 
biased towards whatever wing got included.

If the second round method is plurality, and it's three-way, then the 
centrist would probably lose in any case.