I would like to propose a colloquial, common english solution to the
debate about what majority is. A "majority candidate" is one with
"majority support" or "majority approval". I think this would fit with
the spirit of what most people would think of when they hear about
'electing a majority candidate'.
We know how to do approval voting with a simple optimal zero-info
strategy. So, you could measure based upon that. Alternately you could
have the no-strategy 'do i approve of this candidate' voter.
There's already an infuriating amount of false mandate thrown to a
candidate who gets voted for by 1/6th of the US population (and how
many actually _like_ the candidate and how many are just going for
what 1/20th of the population voted for in the primary). I don't want
IRV to add to that by mislabeling candidates as having majority
approval when they do not.
Brian Olson
http://bolson.org/
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