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The thing I don't get about approval voting is when do you stop voting for your second choice? It seems like every vote with approval voting is a strategic vote

by pateras 12y ago

The thing I don't get about approval voting is when do you stop voting for your second choice? It seems like every vote with approval voting is a strategic vote, whereas with IRV you just always vote for your preferred candidates in order. Yes, favorite betrayal is possible, but it requires a very specific set of circumstances, and the only gaming of the system is people throwing their top vote to the opponent, which is very risky and requires a freakish amount of insight into the race to know if the conditions of a spoiler are even possible. To me, strategic voting seems much more likely with approval voting than it does with IRV, and it's that strategic voting that is maintaining the two party system. I think the possibility of a possible spoiler effect under IRV is small, and that its chances of actually allowing 3rd party victories are much higher, and thus worth the risk, especially because, to me, approval voting doesn't really remove the spoiler effect, but just delays it. I like approval voting, but IRV seems like a better solution, overall. Also, I disagree that approval voting is much easier to understand. IRV isn't significantly more complicated than approval voting, and neither are significantly more complicated the current plurality/FPTP system. TL;DR - In my opinion, IRV's rewards outweigh its risks and IRV > approval voting > FPTP.

eru 12y ago
It's strategic voting under first past the post that maintaining the two-party system, not strategic voting in general. In approval voting you are always best off voting your preference. The only thing you have to decide is your cutoff for how many people you want to approve. From what I've read, people are pretty good at that intuitively.
- ClayShentrup 12y ago
  www.electology.org/threshold
aninhumer 12y ago
>The thing I don't get about approval voting is when do you stop voting for your second choice? I actually think splitting parties into which ones you like or dislike is a far more natural process than ranking them. Especially when you start getting more variety. That said, I tend to prefer Range voting, since it gives people the most flexibility to actually express their relative preferences. >Yes, favorite betrayal is possible, but it requires a very specific set of circumstances I don't think they're that uncommon circumstances. But more importantly, even the possibility of a spoiler is enough to make people think twice about putting their actual favourite first. It's nowhere near as bad as FPTP, but there's still some pressure to choose a popular party.

by pateras 12y ago

eru 12y ago

It's strategic voting under first past the post that maintaining the two-party system, not strategic voting in general. In approval voting you are always best off voting your preference. The only thing you have to decide is your cutoff for how many people you want to approve. From what I've read, people are pretty good at that intuitively.

ClayShentrup 12y ago
www.electology.org/threshold

aninhumer 12y ago

>The thing I don't get about approval voting is when do you stop voting for your second choice? I actually think splitting parties into which ones you like or dislike is a far more natural process than ranking them. Especially when you start getting more variety. That said, I tend to prefer Range voting, since it gives people the most flexibility to actually express their relative preferences. >Yes, favorite betrayal is possible, but it requires a very specific set of circumstances I don't think they're that uncommon circumstances. But more importantly, even the possibility of a spoiler is enough to make people think twice about putting their actual favourite first. It's nowhere near as bad as FPTP, but there's still some pressure to choose a popular party.