On 2.6.2012, at 18.19, Jameson Quinn wrote: > > 2) Approval method and its strategies were once more discussed. My > understanding is simply that Approval works quite fine as long as there are > only one or two winnable candidates, but when there are three or more, the > method pretty much fails > > Fails compared to what? At its worst, approval is still better than > plurality; and depending on your voting model, it could be much better (for > instance, honest probabilistic approval is range, with great BR). > > Jameson
I was just thinking that it "fails to work properly". Approval is more expressive than Plurality and it allows (small) third parties to run without becoming spoilers. But I wouldn't say that it is categorically better than Plurality since there are many needs and many uses for election methods. One difference is that Approval is a compromise oriented method while Plurality aims at electing from (and forming) large parties. If our target is to establish a two-party system, Plurality is our natural choice. Range and Approval (if seen as one Range variant) are good for certain kind of elections. Typically we use majority based single-winner methods in competitive political environments and utility based methods when we have neutral non-competitive "judges" as voters. Also here the needs determine which method is best. Juho
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