Critique of Approval Voting from Jim Mueller

[William Waugh]

What about this?  Jim says:

• Spoilers under an Approval Voting system will be voters who fearing that their second favorite candidate would overtake their favorite candidate, did not vote for their second choice only to see a less approved of or a disapproved of candidate outpoll both their first and second favorite candidates.

  March 25 at 10:59pm · 
• 

  Jim Mueller William Waugh, The ... above is a 60% left-40% right district with a strong Green Party Candidate who is polling just ahead of the Democrat. Polls show that most of the Green Party voters would vote for the Dem to stop the Republican but that the Democratic voters are not as strong on also approving the Green Party Candidate.
  The Green Party Party Candidate wants to win and so starts to discourage her/his supporters from also approving the Democrat. The Democrat retaliates and the Republican wins 40% Rep, 39% Green and 38% Democrat.
  Why mess with this? Approval Voting is a variety of winner-takes-all. It is slightly better than first-past-the -post but there is no [principle] behind it like "Every voter gets the representation of their choice."
  What is the slogan for Approval Voting? "Possibly fewer disappointed voters" or "More clearly shows how many disappointed voters there are with winner-takes-all systems"

[Jameson Quinn]

The scenario Jim imagines is called the "chicken dilemma", because it resembles a game of chicken between the Green and Democratic voters. If one group is more cooperative, they lose by a little; but if both are uncooperative, they lose by a lot. It is not impossible, but opposing approval voting because of it is like driving cross-country on a motorcycle because you think airplanes are too dangerous. That is to say:

1. This basic situation would be rare. Generally, there will be two candidates who stand out as stronger than the others. A leftist district like the one you describe, with strong Green and Democratic factions, would often have fewer than 1/3 Republicans, in which case there is no danger of this.

2. If this looked as if it might happen, people would see the possibility, and there's several ways to avoid the problem. If the Green really only has 39% solid support, the Democrat would probably argue that they are actually the Condorcet winner, and try to demonstrate secondary support from Republican-leaning independents in order solidify their position and encourage Green voters to be cooperative. Of course, if the problem is that it's a Democratic incumbent seen as corrupt by most, the Green could do the same thing. In both cases, this "broad appeal" strategy would probably prevent a chicken problem.

Remember, we're comparing this to Plurality. A "chicken dilemma" problem would be rarer than spoilers in Plurality, because it requires more specific circumstances, and is more avoidable even when those circumstances threaten. Certainly for a Green, who under plurality is accused of being a spoiler in every single election, this is the kind of problem you'd love to have.

If you want a voting system that deals well with the chicken dilemma, there are such. SODA or "improved Condorcet" systems do very well; and median systems (ie, Majority Judgment, etc.) would let voters put their second choice near but not at the bottom, which would work well (both individually and societally) in this scenario.

Finally: it seems that Mueller is comparing Approval to PR. Of course, these are not antithetical ideas; most of us here would enthusiastically support bills or initiatives for either one of these.

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[Clay Shentrup]

I don't know what he means by "spoilers". The approval threshold strategy is discussed here.

http://www.electology.org/threshold

E.g. say you think X=10, Y=8, Z=2, and they are all roughly equally likely to win—then your best strategy is to vote for X and Y.

But say that you think X=10, Y=5, Z=2 — then you only want to vote for X.

This is not a "problem".

If anything, this shows the relative superiority of Score/Approval Voting, in that most ranked systems would force you to focus on whether you should support your sincere favorite. In Jim's example, the voter is concerned about whether to vote for his second favorite. This is kind of "first world problems".

These are also relevant (though they could use some cleaning up):

http://www.electology.org/later-no-harm

http://www.electology.org/bullet-voting

[William Waugh]

On Thursday, March 27, 2014 8:59:38 PM UTC-4, William Waugh started a thread that is now posted, replies and all, at https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/electionscience/6hlV4WnsqS0 .

In regard to the first two replies, what Jim Mueller is comparing Approval Voting to is Jim's proposal that as pointed out elsewhere in this forum, amounts to something like Asset Voting with Weighted Congressmembers.  In Jim's maximum program, every voter would receive the representation she voted for, from among those who get onto the ballot (some count of signatures would be required; I think he's for keeping the count that's currently required for independents in Wisconsin).  So that could result in more representatives than there is room for in the chamber.  Those with the most votes could sit in the chamber, and the less weighted representatives would vote over some reasonably secure communication network, and might not have as much chance to speak to the general session (they could still serve on committees).  I may be including some guesses of my own about these details; Jim has written about some of them, but I'm not sure that he wrote about speaking time for example.