I agree with most of Charles Filterman's letter, but would like to make a few brief comments. It's true that people more willing to co-operate deserve amy extra influence that they gain thereby. But it's important that the Approval method doesn't give them more power: Their co-operation gives them more influence. In fact, when proposing Approval, it's dangerous to say that people who vote for more candidates have more power. The fact is that, for every pairwise comparison, everyone has equal power to express a distinction or not to. Every voter has equal power to give or not give a vote to any particular candidate. That's the important thing to emphasize. Sometimes, when people are stubborn on the power issue, it's helpful to ask them how much power or influence they'd have if they voted for _all_ of the candidates. *** I don't believe that a 1-dimensional simplification is all that unreasonable, even if it isn't absolutely literally accurate. Many of the issues are grouped by most voters, so that there's some tendency for people who feel a certain way on one issue to also feel a certain way on other issues too. Some say that happens more than it should. I don't know, but, to a large extent I'm sure it's rational voting behavior. Maybe several different issues are underlain by more basic issues like caring vs uncaringness, consideration & compassion vs their opposites. If so, then it isn't surprising that there tends to be a 1-dimensional] issue-space, at least to some extent. Mike Ossipoff
