2012/6/2 Juho Laatu <juho4...@yahoo.co.uk> > On 2.6.2012, at 18.19, Jameson Quinn wrote: > > >> 2) Approval method and its strategies were once more discussed. My >> understanding is simply that Approval works quite fine as long as there are >> only one or two winnable candidates, but when there are three or more, the >> method pretty much fails >> > > Fails compared to what? At its worst, approval is still better than > plurality; and depending on your voting model, it could be much better (for > instance, honest probabilistic approval is range, with great BR). > > Jameson > > > I was just thinking that it "fails to work properly". > > Approval is more expressive than Plurality and it allows (small) third > parties to run without becoming spoilers. But I wouldn't say that it is > categorically better than Plurality since there are many needs and many > uses for election methods. One difference is that Approval is a compromise > oriented method while Plurality aims at electing from (and forming) large > parties. If our target is to establish a two-party system, Plurality is our > natural choice. >
I strongly disagree. Even for a two-party system, plurality's flaws are worse than its advantages. Even if two-party is your goal (and I'd argue that's a bad goal, you can get the same actual beneficial ends without two parties if you need to), IRV and/or official party primaries are the way to get it. Jameson > > Range and Approval (if seen as one Range variant) are good for certain > kind of elections. Typically we use majority based single-winner methods in > competitive political environments and utility based methods when we have > neutral non-competitive "judges" as voters. Also here the needs determine > which method is best. > > Juho > > > > > ---- > Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info > >
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