<html>
<head>
<style><!--
.hmmessage P
{
margin:0px;
padding:0px
}
body.hmmessage
{
font-size: 10pt;
font-family:Tahoma
}
--></style></head>
<body class='hmmessage'><div dir='ltr'>
<br>A. Answer to the claim that Approval requires strategy and Condorcet doesn't:<br><br>1. People keep saying that Approval requires tactical voting, but that Condorcet doesn't. Gibbard and Satterthwaite<br>would be surprised to hear that. <br><br>As I've mentioned, Condorcet fully shares Approval's biggest strategy problem: The co-operation/defection problem.<br><br>No attempted improvement on Approval is worthwhile unless it is a method that is at least defection-resistant, as I've defined<br>that term. A defection-resistant method gets rid of the co-operation/defection problem as it exists in a similar nonresistant method.<br>I call that the primary C/D problem. There might (usually is) a _secondnary_ C/D problem, but it isn't as bad. Typically, defecting<br>and causing that problem requires a very counterintuitive and unlikely kind of voting.<br><br>Ordinary Approval, and Condorcet, are not defection-resistant. <br><br>That C/D problem can be dealt with in Approval, in the ways that I've described, and so I don't consider it a serious problem.<br>(Though I do claim that it's serious enough to be called Approval's main problem, and something that must be reduced in order<br>to meaningfully improve on Approval).<br><br>Surely the C/D problem can likewise be similarly dealt with in Condorcet. My point is that Condorcet retains Approval's worst<br>problem, and therefore is not a significant or meaningful improvement over Approval.<br><br>2. Condorcet has a serious strategy problem that Approval doesn't have: FBC failure. I've said much about why that's important<br>for our public political elections, and so I won't repeat that here. Condorcet is unsuitable and unsatisfactory for public elections, due to <br>its FBC-Failure.<br><br>3. Let me just add that (I know I've recently said this) ITC avoids both of those criticisms: It passes FBC, and it is defection-resistant.<br><br><br>B. Answer to the Condorcetists' agonizing about Approval stragtegy:<br><br>I can't say "I feel your pain", because I must admit that I don't.<br><br>Condorcetists and IRVists agonize about the dilemma of "Should I approve my 2nd choice???". <br><br>I've recently posted, several times, suggested Approval strategies. Different approaches to Approval strategy, depending on<br>1) Whether there are unacceptable candidates who could win; and 2) What facts you have information about, or have a feel for.<br><br>Apparently the Condorcetists and IRVists haven't read that, or heard about Approval strategies. So let me inform them now: <br><br>There are easy and natural ways to choose whether or not to approve your 2nd choice (and any and every other candidate).<br><br>Another thing that would help the agonizing Condorcetists and IRVists would be to actually try out Approval, and maybe Condorcet<br>and IRV too, in actual voting, in staw-polls. We've done that much on EM. It was for that purpose that I proposed a poll, a few months <br>ago, on EM. You didn't want to try using the methods in actual voting. Therefore, if you're a Condorcetist or an IRVist who wrings his hands<br>about what it's like to vote in Approval, then I would politely point out to you that you don't know what it's like to vote in Approval. <br>Or Condorcet or IRV.<br><br>If you want to find out what it's like to vote in those methods, you might want to try it.<br><br>If you don't want to, that's your choice. But then, don't tell us what it's like to vote in Approval.<br><br>Mike Ossipoff.<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> </div></body>
</html>