Joe Weinstein wrote: >Our process could readily have been formalized as an MCA election among >candidates A-E. Under usual Approval, B would have won; but in effect we >followed MCA, making A the clear winner.
I wouldn't be so sure that B would win in approval. If everyone took the name "Approval Voting" at face value, and voted for all the candidates they considered acceptable, then yes, B would win. But that's usually a poor strategy in Approval. I've never seen anyone on this list seriously advocate it, although I have seen it used in letters to the editor and the like, where space considerations force things to be simplified. The most popular strategy given out around here is "vote for the candidate you would vote for in a lone mark plurality election, and also vote for any candidates you like more." A slightly better strategy is, "vote for all the candidates you like more than the front-runner, and vote for the front runner if you like him/her more than the second most popular candidate." Most of the time these two are the same; they only differ when there are candidates you like more than the front-runner but less than the second place candidate. Since from the sound of it, almost everyone liked A and B the best, this was not the case here. So if the A supporters are even mildly strategic, they will vote for only A in an approval election, and A will win. This assumes that people are aware that A and B are the front-runners, but for the sound of it this was the case here as well. -Adam ---- For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em
