But what if what voters expect of the outcome isn't influenced by the special 3-candidate defection strategy that I spoke of--What if voters merely assumed that the Democrat and the Republican both had .5 probability of winning?
Then, as Lomax said, his Green Democrat would have reason to approve the Green, by better-than-expectation strategy. Lomax meant that example to refute my suggestion that preferrers of Middle of 3 candidates don't have reason to approve anyone else. If they don't, that makes it easy to estimate the numbers of preferrers of the 2 extreme candidates, from their approval count totals. But suppose some Green Democrats would approve Green for the reason described in the 1st paragraph above? I've said earlier that, when Approval gives non-Republocrat parties and candidates the viability that is genuinely theirs, statisticians and honest poll-takers of all political persuasions will be very interested in determining the numbers of preferrers of the various candidates and parties. Under the conditions described in the 1st paragraph above, these people and others would estimate the relevant preference numbers based on the available data, including approval count totals, polling results, and both together. I emphasize, regarding my statement that my statements about Middle preferrers would have no reason to approve anyone else, that that statement was intended to apply only to elections with only 3 candidates. My discussion of results based on better-than-expectation strategy is more general in its application. I reply fully to questions and objections, and some of these messages have been posted in order to completely reply to Lomax's example. Mike Ossipoff ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info