<font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">Adrian:</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">I don’t have your e-mail address yet, and so I’m posting
this to the election-methods mailing list.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">This is an introduction to Approval. I define Plurality,
speak of its problems, and the cause of its problems, and the easiest, minimal,
solution to those problems. If I may reveal it prematurely now, Approval is the
easy, simple minimal change that will fix Plurality’s problem.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">Then I’ll describe an objection that we sometimes hear, and
will answer that objection.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">Then I’ll say a few words about Approval’s advantages, and
then about its strategy (the simplest there is).</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">I suggest this as an article in your publication. If it’s
too long, then I’d suggest keeping the part about Plurality’s problems,<span style> </span>their cause, and their solution (Approval).
If something must be dropped, then I’d suggest to drop something that comes
after those parts.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">Here is my suggested Approval-introduction article:</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">Our current voting system, of course, is the vote-for-1
method. Also <span style> </span>called
"Plurality", or the "Single Mark Method".</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3"><span style> </span>In our Plurality
elections, we often hear people saying that they're going to vote for someone
they don't really like, because he/she is the "lesser-of-2-evils".
Note that they're voting for someone they don't like, and often not voting for
the people they really do like, because they're perceived as unwinnable.<span style> </span>What do we get when we vote for people we
don't really like? We get something that we don't like. Everyone complains
about how all the viable politicians are corrupt and bought. Does it really
make sense to believe corrupt and un-liked candidates to be more
"viable"?</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3"><span style> </span>So how does this
strange situation come about? What causes it? When you compromise in Plurality,
for a "lesser-evil", you're saying, with your vote-support, that s/he
is better than your favorite. Plurality can be regarded as a point-rating
system, but a funny one in which you're only allowed to give a point to one
candidate. You're required to give 0 points to everyone else. Top rating to
one, <span style> </span>bottom to everyone else. Those
zeros that you give to all but one are materially real, in the sense that you're
thereby voting for those candidates to lose.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3"><span style> </span>Note that it isn't
that Plurality only lets you rate one candidate. You're rating them all. But
you're required to rate all but one of them at_ bottom_, voted to lose. That's
why I referred to Plurality as a _funny_ point-rating system. Someone at the
forum said that Plurality doesn't count enough information. But that isn't
true. Plurality counts plenty of information, but it's mostly false
information. All those compulsory zero ratings. When you say something because
you have to, even if you don't feel it, that's falsity. It's no exaggeration to
say that Plurality forces falsification.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3"><span style> </span>It should hardly be
surprising that this results in a lot of dissatisfaction with "the
politicians", the “lesser-evils” whom we're choosing with our compulsorily
falsified ballots. Forced falsification has no place in a democracy's voting.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3"><span style> </span>We're told that in
Plurality we vote for our favorite. But the millions who have to "hold
their nose" when they insincerely help someone they don't like, over
someone they do like, might not agree.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri"><span style> </span></font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">How to avoid this problem? Why not repeal the rule that
makes Plurality so funny?<span style> </span>Let people
rate _every_ candidate with a 1 or a 0. Rate every candidate as
"Approved" or "Unapproved". The candidate with the most
"Approved" ratings wins. The result? Well, we'd be electing the most
approved candidate, wouldn't we. <span style> </span>Who can
criticize that?</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3"><span style> </span>When everyone can
support the candidate(s) they really like, instead of just a
"lesser-evil", that can only mean that we elect someone more liked.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3"><span style> </span>That voting system,
the minimal improvement on Plurality to fix its ridiculous problem, is called
"Approval voting", or just "Approval".</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3"><span style> </span>Occasionally we hear
a claim that Approval violates “1-person-1-vote” (1p1v). </font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">But Approval is a points rating system. Every voter has the
equal power to rate each candidate as approved or unapproved. </font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3"><span style> </span>If you approve more
candidates, does that give you more power? Hardly. Say you approve all of the
candidates. You thereby have zero influence on the election. Say there are 20
candidates. You approve 19 of them.<span style> </span>I
disagree with you, and, in fact I believe oppositely to you. I like the one you
didn't approve, and not the ones you did approve. So I marked oppositely to
you, approving the one candidate you didn't approve. My ballot exactly and
completely cancels yours out.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">Obviously any ballot can be cancelled out by an
oppositely-marked ballot. The ballot approving all but one candidate is can be
cancelled out by a ballot marking only the one that the first ballot didn’t
mark.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3"><span style> </span>Together, those two
ballots give approvals to all of the candidates. You approved 19 candidates,
and I've approved only 1, but I've cancelled you out.<span style> </span>People who approve more candidates don't have
more voting power than people who vote for fewer candidates.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">Approval<span style> </span>is one of
the few voting systems that meets the Favorite-Betrayal-Criterion (FBC). In
other words, Approval never gives anyone incentive to vote someone over his/her
favorite. With Approval, for the first time, no one would have a reason to not
fully support all of the candidates they like, including their favorites.
Condordet doesn’t meet FBC. IRV quite flagrantly fails FBC. The public are so
conditioned to resignedly give it all away to a “lesser-evil”, that many will
bury their favorite, even with Condorcet. I’ve personally obsesrved it,<span style> </span>in a Condorcet straw-poll.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">Approval is, as I said, the minimal change that gets rid of
Plurality’s ridiculous problem. When anything more complicated than Approval is
proposed , opponents, media pundits and commentators, magazine writers,
politicians, and some academic authorities will point out that it could have unforeseen
and undesired consequences. They’ll take advantage of the fact that the public
can’t predict all of the method’s consequences. They’ll point out that the
method could cause disaster, because we don’t know what it would do. Now, we
voting system reform advocates all agree that Condorcet is better than
Plurality. But the public won’t know that. Authorities and pundits will say “It
needs a lot more study”, and</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">It will never happen. </font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">Approval has a unique optimization. All of the Approval
strategies (which I’ll get to in a minute) amount to approving all of the
candidates who are better than what you expect from the election. That means
that the winner will be the candidate who is better-than-expectation for the
most voters. That’s the candidate whose win will pleasantly surprise the most
voters.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">Anyway, it’s obvious that electing the candidate to whom the
most people have given approval is, itself, a valuable optimization.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">Approval strategy:</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">First, you can just approve the candidate you’d vote for if
it were Plurality, and also for everyone who is better<span style> </span>(including your favorite).<span style> </span>That would be good enough.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">But Approval has strategy instructions that aren’t available
for Plurality, because they’d be too complicated to fully describe, and much
more difficult to implement. So don’t let these suggestions make you think that
Approval is more complicated. Approval’s strategy is incomparably simpler than
that of Plurality.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">If there are unacceptable candidates who could win, then
approve all of the acceptables, and none of the unacceptables. </font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">If there are no unacceptable candidates who could win, and
if you have no predictive information or feel about winnability, then vote for
all of the above-mean (above average) candidates.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">If neither of the above 2 paragraphs applies,then vote for
all of the candidates who are better than what you expect from the election.
To<span style> </span>judge that directly, ask yourself: “Would
I rather appoint him/her to office than hold the election?”<span style> </span>If so, then approve him/her.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">Why does that maximize your expectation? Because, when you
improve (by approving him/her) the win-probability of someone who is better
than your expectation, that will raise your expectation.</font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">_All_ of the Approval<span style>
</span>strategy suggestions are special cases of the rule just given. </font></font></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">For example, maybe you have a feel for who the top-two
votegetters will be. Then, of course, approve the better of those two, and
everyone who is better.<span style> </span>But I hasten to
emphasize that the candidates who you might expect to be frontrunners in
Plurality are very unlikely to be the frontrunners in Approval. Never let
anyone tell you who the frontrunners will be.</font></font></div><div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">Mike Ossipoff</font></font></div><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
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