Kevin Too bad we cannot discard even more information, like the fact of a majority winner that isn't one of the contestants in the contest picked by the approval votes.
If it weren't impractical, the ideal mode for this election would be an approval vote for the explicit purpose of determining who would be in the runoff, and a later trip to the polls with only those two names on the ballot. Another thought: make the single contest between the approval winner A and the candidate B with the most approval on the ballots that did not approve A. If B's total approval is less than the number of ballots on which A is approved without B, then no runoff is needed. ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
