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You vote for who you approve of for the position in question. Whoever has the most approval wins. It's that simple: It doesn't matter whether you prefer A over

You vote for who you approve of for the position in question. Whoever has the most approval wins. It's that simple: It doesn't matter whether you prefer A over B, all that matters is whether you think each is a good-enough candidate. Fiber grained preferences then emerge at the population level, not the individual level. "What the voter should do to get the result they want" assumes a level of individual agency which really isn't present in a real election: The result is always a combination of individual choice with collective will.

lostdog 4y ago
I knew tons of people with a preference of Bernie > Hillary >> Trump. They preferred Hillary but did they "approve" of her? How should they vote? This kind of situation isn't special. It comes up in every election, and approval is completely confused about how to handle it.
- sdenton4 4y ago
  Would you be OK with Hillary as president? If yes, give approval; if not, don't. Order of preference simply doesn't matter in approval voting. The only reason it seems complicated is because we are too used to strategic voting in the First Past the Post system. I recently had the occasion to really game out what happens in ranked choice voting. It is similar to approval voting (you should only rank people to approve of), but in practice you elect whoever gets past the 50% threshold first, which may not be whoever had the most raw approval. The first person past 50% is effectively random, especially in a large field with complicated voter preferences. So, you get an illusion of choice: everyone lists their preference, but the actual winner is a somewhat random choice amongst the candidates with >50% approval. Thus, I advocate removing the illusion, and simply picking the candidate with the greatest approval. Easy.
- ClayShentrup 4y ago
  i wrote a page on this very issue. https://www.rangevoting.org/RVstrat6 https://www.rangevoting.org/RVstrat6

lostdog 4y ago

I knew tons of people with a preference of Bernie > Hillary >> Trump. They preferred Hillary but did they "approve" of her? How should they vote? This kind of situation isn't special. It comes up in every election, and approval is completely confused about how to handle it.

sdenton4 4y ago
Would you be OK with Hillary as president? If yes, give approval; if not, don't. Order of preference simply doesn't matter in approval voting. The only reason it seems complicated is because we are too used to strategic voting in the First Past the Post system. I recently had the occasion to really game out what happens in ranked choice voting. It is similar to approval voting (you should only rank people to approve of), but in practice you elect whoever gets past the 50% threshold first, which may not be whoever had the most raw approval. The first person past 50% is effectively random, especially in a large field with complicated voter preferences. So, you get an illusion of choice: everyone lists their preference, but the actual winner is a somewhat random choice amongst the candidates with >50% approval. Thus, I advocate removing the illusion, and simply picking the candidate with the greatest approval. Easy.
ClayShentrup 4y ago
i wrote a page on this very issue. https://www.rangevoting.org/RVstrat6 https://www.rangevoting.org/RVstrat6