As usual, I don't know what Dave Ketchum means. Returning to the subject-line's topic:
In Approval, with 3 candidates, or 3 candidates perceived viable: 1. From the point of view of the middle candidate's supporters, there are 2 possibilities: a. One of the extreme 2 has a majority, in which case it doesn't matter what the Middle voters do b. Or Middle is the CW, in which case it is the responsible for the smaller extreme faction to approve Middle, not vice-versa. 2. From the point of view of an extreme voter, misjudging whether to approve Middle would amount to misjudging whether your faction is a majority, vs whether your faction is smaller than the opposite faction. That would be a big mis-estimate indeed, unless the middle faction is very small. And, continuing #2, from the point of view of an extreme voter, everyone has access to the same information, and so if it looks as if extreme A is smaller than extreme B, then the B voters will think they don't need to approve Middle. But the A voters will think that they _do_ need to approve Middle. That means that, if the B voters are mistaken, the B voters' mistake won't be costly. The situation favors Middle. Because of #1 and #2, the Middle voters have no reason to approve either extreme. And for that reason, candidate A's approval count is a good estimate for the number of A voters, and B's approval count is a good estimate of the number of B voters. These are the things that the extreme voters would like to know, or at least have an idea of. In the 2nd Approval election, the progressives or Green-preferrers will have a good idea of whether or not the Green can beat the Republican. The Democrat good-cop/bad-cop scam will be finished, when people are supporting what they really like, and therefore know what others like. Given that, and the disillusionment about what the Republocrats have been doing, and their difference from eachother, today's pessimistic and resigned situation will be no more. Mike Ossipoff ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
