Hi folks, As you saw earlier, some people on Wikipedia are considering a switch to Bloc voting (plurality-at-large) for a multi-seat election, away from Approval.
I had always thought Approval made the most sense here, but I'm starting to see the wisdom of the criticism. With a very large field, you have to really dilute your vote to keep the crackpots you are afraid of out of the running. That pretty much means voting for everyone who you don't explicitly disapprove of. Strategically speaking, Range is the same as Approval. Your optimal strategy is to give everyone who is mildly competent the highest score possible. People may vote sincerely in initial elections, but will learn the optimal strategy over several high-stakes elections. There's a good argument to be made against STV in this context. This isn't about finding a diversity of opinions (proportionality)...they seem to want a cluster at the median. So is Condorcet (specifically Schulze(wv)) the best recommendation to make here, with each winning candidate popped off the top of the stack until the five seats are filled? Or is there arguments to be made that some proportionality is always a good thing, and therefore a proportional system should be used? Rob ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info