Russ Paielli 6049awj02-at-sneakemail.com |EMlist| wrote:
Two different questions can be asked about any voting system:
1. What is the best voting strategy? 2. How effective is the best voting strategy?
The fruitcake can't distinguish these two questions, but perhaps others can.
Let's apply these questions to plurality as an example. The strategy is simple to formulate, but how effective is the strategy? It is very effective if you prefer one of the two major parties, but otherwise it is not very effective.
You've stated what is perhaps the best strategy for Approval, but how effective is that strategy? Well, in some cases it may be very effective, but in other cases it may not be.
For example, what if *three* parties are equally popular? Let's take the classic Democrat (D), Republican (R), and Green (G) case. Suppose they are approximately equally likely to win. And suppose your own order of perference is G>D>R. Who do you approve?
I should have also stipulated that you consider D to be roughly halfway between G and R in terms of desirability. Obviously if D is much closer to one than to the other, your strategy is clearer.
Well, you could play it safe and approve both G and D. But then you will be disappointed in your choice if it turns out that G could have won had more G>D>R voters not approved D.
Then again, you could be bold and only approve G. But then you will be even more disappointed if R wins but D had a good chance if only more G>D>R voters had approved D.
Do you see the dilemma here? The problem is not that you don't have a formula to guide your strategy. The problem is more *fundamental* than that. The problem is that *no* formula can help. Your best strategy is more or less a coin toss.
And we haven't even got to the case of four competitive parties.
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