Voter strategy in Approval will be simple at first, but it could become very difficult later. Simple formulas are nice, but they cannot resolve the dilemma that voters could eventually face.
Let's say that Approval has just been adopted. Well, Greens will vote for their Green candidate plus the Democrat and everyone else they prefer to the Democrat. That's the easy part.
But now let's say that Approval has been in use for several election cycles, and the Green is starting to catch up to the Democrat. Well, the Green Party will certainly urge their supporters to drop their vote for that pesky Democrat. But if they take the advice, they risk handing the election over to the Republicans, of course.
A familiar dilemma? Of course. It's the "lesser of two evils" problem rearing its ugly head again, albeit in a slightly different form. But this time it may actually be worse. In plurality, the strategy is obvious, but in Approval it won't be. Many Greens who would abandon their Green candidate without a second thought under plurality will be more tempted, under Approval, to instead abandon the Democrat if the Greens actually have a chance. And of course the Greens will say that they *do* have a chance "if only you schmucks would vote for us and not the Democrat." Heck, they're already saying that under plurality, but now they will have some credibility.
The bottom line is that Approval Voting is not a panacea, but I'm sure everyone here knows that. Having said all that, it *does* give voters more choices, and I think it is well worth a try. But we need to start at the bottom, with local elections. And we need to understand that public skepticism is not completely unwarranted.
--Russ
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