Ralph and Peter, About the use of Approval... Ralph wrote... <snip "I am not sure if it is used much in politics either. A variant is used for election of the general secretary in the UN." snip>
The only recent use of Approval voting in governmental elections (I believe) was in the waning days of the Soviet Union, where voters were instructed to cross out the names of DIS-approved candidates, leaving each ballot with approved choices from each voter. None of the countries that emerged from the broken up Soviet Union kept that system, however. A feature of Approval to be aware of is the readily apparent strategy of disapproving closely competitive contenders to one's favored choice, with the potential that it may revert to de-facto plurality voting in some implementations. Because strategy is so much less obvious under Condorcet, and the fact that a single ballot can be used to elect both a president and the broader body (using single-seat Condorcet tally for the one and STV PR for the others) this is probably easier and better. However, unlike a society election (where citizens can't "quit"), elections within a party may have different goals in terms of proportional representation. Terry Bouricius ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
