Nov 2011 23:05:49 -0700 > From: matt welland <m...@kiatoa.com> > I wasn't clear. I want to hear opinions from the list: Is approval > better or worse than IRV and why?
Approval is a far superior system to FPTP and IRV because approval: 1. unlike FPTP and IRV, it solves the spoiler problem of a nonwinning candidate altering who would otherwise win; 2. unlike IRV, it is precinct-summable and easy to manually statistically audit for accuracy and so preserves or allows for timely, understandable, election accuracy verification; 3. unlike IRV, it looks at all the candidate choices of all voters, thus treating all voters' votes equally and fairly and is thus monotonic; 4. unlike IRV, it is simple to implement using the same ballot style as FPTP, with a fairly simple programming change in the tally program; 5. unlike IRV, it preserves the rights of voters to have their votes counted fairly and equally with other voters and to participate in the final counting rounds (final decision-making process); 6. unlike IRV, It is very simple for voters to figure out how to best strategize (i.e. for single-winner elections, If your favorite candidate is one of the top-two most likely vote-getters, bullet vote. Otherwise, vote for both your favorite(s) and one of the likely top-two vote getters. In other words, the simple principle is that a vote for your 2nd choice candidate may cause the 2nd choice, rather than your 1st choice candidate to win, so vote for a 2nd, 3rd,... choice if you don't mind them winning the contest.) 7, unlike IRV, it increases the chances of a popular 3rd party candidate winning rather than being a system for keeping the smaller party candidates from interfering with the 2 major parties (true once people figure out how to strategize with IRV by ranking one of the 2 major party candidates 1st) In other words, approval voting is administratively, educationally, and technically simple and equitable, and thus doable - and unlike IRV actually makes substantial improvements over FPTP because it solves the spoiler problem and does not create nonmonotonicity and huge administrative, technical, auditability and other practical problems. -- Kathy Dopp http://electionmathematics.org Town of Colonie, NY 12304 "One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the discussion with true facts." "Renewable energy is homeland security." Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174 View some of my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1451051 ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
