[EM] Approval and "1 person/1 vote"

[Adam Tarr]

Recently, there have been a few people on the list making the erroneous claim that approval voting violates the principle of "one person, one vote". I just wanted to share what I consider the simplest argument to refute this:

*** You can only vote at most once for the winning candidate. ***

That's really it. Once you internalize that fact, you will realize that claiming approval violates 1P1V is just smoke in mirrors.

To elaborate, here's a thought experiment: imagine everyone else has already voted, and you're the last person in the booth. You can either vote for the frontrunner and not vote for the closest comeptitor, vote for the closest competitor and not vote for the frontrunner, vote for both, or vote for neither. If you do either of the first two, you have the same power as you would have if you had voted in plurality. If you do either of the last two, you have the same voting power as someone who casts a vote for a third party candidate does in current plurality elections.

The beauty of approval voting is that it makes it more likely that you will have a chance to cast a vote in the deciding contest of the race, even if you feel strongly about other candidates. Approval actually brings us CLOSER to 1P1V, where plurality often effectively leaves you with 1P0V (one person, zero votes).

-Adam


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