Thanks all for the discussion and pointers. I still can't concretely
conclude anything yet but here are some rambling and random thoughts
based on what was said and my prior experiences.
Plurality
1. Leads to two lowest common denominator parties which are not
accountable to the voters. This conclusion supported by real
world
observation.
2. Feels right to the non-critical mind, "one man, one vote"
3. Very fast at the polls
Approval
1. Encourages participation of minor parties and thus should keep
the
big guys paying attention to a wider base.
2. Almost zero marginal implementation cost. Hanging chads count
just
fine :)
3. Understandable by anyone but feels wrong at first "not fair, you
get more than one vote".
4. Apparently has a terrible flaw but no one seems to be able to
articulate it in layman terms. No real world experience
available
to illustrate the problem. Here is where I need to learn more.
Data provided to date is unconvincing to me.
5. Does not meet the desire of some to be able to differentiate
between "I like", "I like a lot" etc. (note: this seems like
perfectionism to me. Large numbers of voters and opinions all
over
the bell curve should make individual expression at the greater
level of granularity irrelevant.)
6. Very fast at the polls. Pick yer favorites and head home for
beer
and telly.
Range
1. Can break the vicious cycle of plurality
2. Not voting for someone at all can have a strong influence on
election outcome. This is very non-intuitive and would take some
getting used to.
3. Allows for nuanced voting.
4. Pain in the ass at the polls (relatively speaking). You can't
safely disregard the candidates you don't care about so you
*have*
to assign everyone a ranking, possibly addressable by defaulting
to zero for all candidates? This is considered a feature and I
agree it has merit. But in reality it is a deal breaker for joe
six pack and co. (and for lazy sobs like me).
IRV
1. Demonstrably broken. 'nuff said.
Suite of complicated systems that strive to reach "Condorcet" ideals.
1. No regular bloke would ever trust 'em because you can't explain
how they work in one or two sentences.
2. Technically superior to other systems.
3. Not clear what problem with approval they would solve. Unless
you
are a perfectionist and insist that individuals express
nuances of
opinion...
Some time ago I put together a site (primitive and unfinished[i]) to
promote approval voting and in the process I spent a lot of time
trying
different systems on the web and repeatedly testing my own site. I
noticed some interesting things from all that playing around.
1. It was very uncomfortable to go back to plurality after trying
other systems. It "feels" unfair and broken.
2. It was very tedious voting in any of the ranking systems.
3. Approval felt boring but good.
I have checked in on this list now and then and I admit I don't
have the
time or skills to follow all the arguments but it strikes me that
approval voting is good enough to break the deadlock, at least in US
politics and that it doesn't have any major flaws. The very
understandable desire to be able to articulate in a finer grained
way in
your vote is perfectionism. With millions of voters, for every
person on
the fence about a particular candidate there will be some to either
side
who will essentially make or break the vote. If you are on the fence,
approve or disapprove, it won't matter.
So, to re-frame my question. What is the fatal flaw with approval?
I'm
not interested in subtle flaws that result in imperfect results. I'm
interested in flaws that result in big problems such as those we see
with plurality and IRV.
[i] www.approvalvote.org
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