I think what Mike means by "approve a candidate if you would rather have that candidate in office than hold the election" is
"if your sincere rating of a candidate is greater than the sum of your ratings of all the candidates multiplied by what you perceive
as the individual candidates' odds of winning (on a scale of 0 to 1, with all the odds summing to 1); then approve that candidate".
Or to put it more simply, "based purely on your preferences among the candidates and your perception of the likely outcome of the
election if it is held (and not on any democratic scruples about the process), if you were given the choice between
(1) cancelling the election and simply appointing candidate x to fill the office; or
(2) going ahead with the normal Approval election;
and you would pick (1), then approve x."
I hope that sheds some light.
Chris Benham
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