Condorcetists: You want to quibble forever about which rank-count is the best.
You object that Approval doesn't let you help your 1st and 2nd choices against your last choice, while still helping your 1st choice against your 2nd choice. But the _big_ benefit starts when everyone can support their 1st and 2nd choices at all. Plurality very effectively puts a gag on everyone who would like something better than the corrupt sleazes that your tv offers as "the two choices". "We have to hold our nose and vote for the lesser-evil [Democrat], so that we don't waste our vote." Do you have any idea how things would be if everyone could actually support their favorites, and without having to try to guess on which one the other similar voters would be combining their support? Do you understand the difference between "liked" and "unliked"? And what would happen if everyone could support whom and what they actually like best? Do you have any idea how far-reaching the resulting changes would be? No, I'm not saying that the resulting country and world would be perfect in every way. I'm saying that it would be what people actually want--something that they can support without holding their nose. But don't underestimate the magnitude of that change. Though I consider Approval to be the best in some meaningful ways, I also would like more--as you would. But, as I said, most of the benefit comes from everyone being able to support 1st choice and 2nd choice _at all_. Let's not be greedy and dwaddle around forever about what else we could ideally get. Do you want improvement or not? Or would you rather debate forever? And, as for helping 1st choice over 2nd choice, while helping both over last choice, free of strategy need: You're in deinal about Gibbard-Satterthwaite. You're in denial about Condorcet's blatant and full-magnitude co-operation/defection problem. And you're in denial about millions of voters' need to litterally maximally help the Democrat beat the Republican. And that's not even counting the good chance of successful offensive burial strategy when there are more than 3 candidates. Mike Ossipoff
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