Incumbents have a huge unfair advantage in that corporations (including unions) pour money into their reelection campaigns. It's the devil you know syndrome and also smart money as incumbents are statistically more likely to win and owe the favor. In this context I wonder if the best voting method for publically funded elections is different from the status quo. Like Schoedinger's Cat, we live in both universes until we know whether there will be meaningful reform or not. I'm guessing there will be but only if all reform groups form an overarching alliance of word and deed if not an actual formal group.
The only thing I don't like about voting for all candidates to see who runs against the incumbents is it doesn't give them a chance to fail in the primary first, and they can save all the legalized graft for the general election. Jon Sent from my iPhone On Nov 13, 2012, at 12:04 AM, Andy Jennings <electi...@jenningsstory.com> wrote: > A lot has been said about strategy in approval voting. Here are some > strategies that have been suggested: > > - U/A: If the candidates are basically in two groups for you, unacceptable > and acceptable, then approve the ones who are acceptable. > > - Honest: Decide what "approval" means to you. Consider each candidate > separately and decide whether or not you approve him/her. > > - Rank all the candidates first, then decide where your approval cutoff is. > (perhaps based on polls) > > - Figure out who the two front runners are, approve the one you prefer as > well as any candidates you like better than that. > > These are all good, simple strategies, but perhaps it will be even simpler > than this. I mean, in most political races there will be an incumbent, which > is a natural cutoff. So just approve everyone you like better than the > incumbent. As for the incumbent, approve him/her if you think he/she is > doing a good job. > > In fact, this suggests a variant of approval voting that might be useful: you > could leave the incumbent off the ballot and say that if no challengers > achieve 50%, then the incumbent wins re-election. That way, you're only > replacing the incumbent when you're "trading up", or finding someone who most > people like better than the incumbent. With many good candidates on the > ballot, it seems like it would be much less likely for incumbents to get > re-elected. > > Thoughts? > > ~ Andy > > ---- > Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
