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On problem with approval voting is you can only vote yes or no to each candidate. Imagine there are 3 candidates, Candidate-A you like, Candidate-B you dislike

On problem with approval voting is you can only vote yes or no to each candidate. Imagine there are 3 candidates, Candidate-A you like, Candidate-B you dislike and Candidate-C you are so-so about. It's obvious how to vote for A and B, but not obvious for C. Under ranking voting systems (such as AV) is is obvous how to vote. You do it in this in this order: Candidate-A, Candidate-C, Candidate-B. Under scoring systems, where you give each candidate a score (say 10 for the best to 0 for the worst), it is also reasonably simple for to vote: Candidate-A 10, Candidate-B 0, Candidate-C somewhere in between. But here again there are problems? If I give C a high score, he is more likely to beat B (which I want) but also more likely to beat A (which I don't want). So that's an incentive for dishonest voting.

CarVac 8y ago
The fact that the decision to approve of candidate C is not easy makes you effectively a swing voter; the chance that you do or don't vote for them is reflective of your approval of them. Either way it doesn't incentivize dishonesty, and it doesn't cause weird squeeze-outs of the middle candidate the way IRV does. I can see how that's less clear cut to a voter, though.
ThinkingGuy 8y ago
Here's the voting system I would like to see implemented: Every voter still gets a single vote in each race, but you can have your vote apply either toward or against a single candidate. The candidate with the highest total of "# of 'against' votes" subtracted from "# of 'for' votes" wins. This would allow voters more freedom of expression than the current system, while being simpler than ranked voting. I understand that it could conceivably (and probably frequently would) result in the winner being the person with the smaller negative number of votes. But at least then they couldn't claim a "mandate for change" based on a broad support of the populace.
- desdiv 8y ago
  FYI what you are describing is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disapproval_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disapproval_voting
breuleux 8y ago
I think that problem sort of fades in the aggregate: given 100 people who order the candidates A-C-B, A will get 100 votes, B will get zero, and C will get some value in between, because some people will go for it, and some won't. If you have a large number of voters, I expect approval voting to behave very similarly to score voting.
cestith 8y ago
Net approval voting takes care of that, and is still simpler to implement on a ballot than ranked choice.
- cabalamat 8y ago
  or you could have s system where you score candidates from +3 (like a lot) to -3 (dislike a lot).

CarVac 8y ago

The fact that the decision to approve of candidate C is not easy makes you effectively a swing voter; the chance that you do or don't vote for them is reflective of your approval of them. Either way it doesn't incentivize dishonesty, and it doesn't cause weird squeeze-outs of the middle candidate the way IRV does. I can see how that's less clear cut to a voter, though.

ThinkingGuy 8y ago

Here's the voting system I would like to see implemented: Every voter still gets a single vote in each race, but you can have your vote apply either toward or against a single candidate. The candidate with the highest total of "# of 'against' votes" subtracted from "# of 'for' votes" wins. This would allow voters more freedom of expression than the current system, while being simpler than ranked voting. I understand that it could conceivably (and probably frequently would) result in the winner being the person with the smaller negative number of votes. But at least then they couldn't claim a "mandate for change" based on a broad support of the populace.

desdiv 8y ago
FYI what you are describing is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disapproval_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disapproval_voting

breuleux 8y ago

I think that problem sort of fades in the aggregate: given 100 people who order the candidates A-C-B, A will get 100 votes, B will get zero, and C will get some value in between, because some people will go for it, and some won't. If you have a large number of voters, I expect approval voting to behave very similarly to score voting.

cestith 8y ago

Net approval voting takes care of that, and is still simpler to implement on a ballot than ranked choice.

cabalamat 8y ago
or you could have s system where you score candidates from +3 (like a lot) to -3 (dislike a lot).