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Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

electionscience.org

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Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#11

Post by tromp »

It's a bit silly to argue that candidates take up too much space on a IRV ballot when it would suffice to duplicate only the box and not their name, as in

                   1st  2nd  3rd  choice
    John Adams     [ ]  [ ]  [ ]
    Ben Franklin   [ ]  [ ]  [ ]
    Tom Jefferson  [ ]  [ ]  [ ]
    Betsy Ross     [ ]  [ ]  [ ]

Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#12

Post by kbutler »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #4

Does Approval Voting really pass the "favourite betrayal criterion"? There are scenarios where if you don't vote for both Good and Ideal, bad will win, and scenarios where if you do vote for both Good and Ideal, Good will win (over Ideal) You obviously don't know which scenario you're in when you vote, so you don't know whether you should vote for both good+ideal or just ideal - both options can cause a worse result…

Yes, approval voting leaves the door open for some tactical voting.

So if candidate #1 would win a simple majority (50.01% of voters), but is absolutely hated by everyone else, but #2 is "acceptable" or second best to 100% of the voters, should #1 win?

We are used to the binary "simple majority takes all" in elections, but maybe the compromise "everybody is pretty OK with this one" _should_ win.

If it were a group of friends going to a restaurant, or playing a game, #2 sounds like a much better option.

Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#13

Post by EarthMephit »

schuyler2d wrote: post #5

Article makes some good arguments for approval voting, but the "Ballot Spoilage" argument is a bit disingenuous. Ballots can't be spoiled in approval voting because any set of circles can be filled in. However it's a lot easier to corrupt a ballot undetected. Just fill in more bubbles for your candidate.

The argument for "Ballot Simplicity" is misleading too

They seem to have tried to intentionally tried to create a much more complicated ballot paper for IRV

Here's a sample of an Australian IRV voting form:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/20...

Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#14

Post by pmyteh »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #6

As a libertarian anything that increases the ability of a 3rd party go gain traction interest me but something smells very off about the recent uptick in discussion of alternatives. If these changes were actually beneficial to the underdog in the general case you'd see them being pushed by the left or the right on a state by state basis depending on the political make up of any given state. The parties aren't run by…

And political scientists! (No-one listens to us, of course).

More seriously, the case for standard First-Past-The-Post voting is really bad in terms of its decision-making properties. It's really only as dominant as it is, where it is, because of its historical position. Exactly what you might replace it with is a trickier question, with multiple plausible candidates, all better than FPTP and all different from each other. I lean towards Single Transferable Vote, and its special case AV/IRV in single member elections, but reasonable people can disagree.

Intriguingly, the British Parliament has just effectively used approval voting to try to break its Brexit deadlock. It failed in this case largely because many members voted highly tactically for their 'ideal' option only, not for what they could live with. AV/IRV would have been a better choice, I think, if a compromise winner was actually wanted.

Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#15

Post by hadrien01 »

tromp wrote: post #11

It's a bit silly to argue that candidates take up too much space on a IRV ballot when it would suffice to duplicate only the box and not their name, as in 1st 2nd 3rd choice John Adams [ ] [ ] [ ] Ben Franklin [ ] [ ] [ ] Tom Jefferson [ ] [ ] [ ] Betsy Ross [ ] [ ] [ ]

Or just put in a number in a single column boxes like in Australia or Ireland.

Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#16

Post by lupire »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #4

Does Approval Voting really pass the "favourite betrayal criterion"? There are scenarios where if you don't vote for both Good and Ideal, bad will win, and scenarios where if you do vote for both Good and Ideal, Good will win (over Ideal) You obviously don't know which scenario you're in when you vote, so you don't know whether you should vote for both good+ideal or just ideal - both options can cause a worse result…

These criteria are moot as regards popular systems. They cover cases where opinion is so mixed that no single-vote system can reliably pick a winner.

Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#17

Post by jnty »

DaanVanVugt wrote: post #9
schuyler2d wrote: post #5

Article makes some good arguments for approval voting, but the "Ballot Spoilage" argument is a bit disingenuous. Ballots can't be spoiled in approval voting because any set of circles can be filled in. However it's a lot easier to corrupt a ballot undetected. Just fill in more bubbles for your candidate.

This is easily prevented by additionally marking the number of candidates chosen.

Yet this would then increase spoilage significantly would it not?

Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#18

Post by lupire »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #6

As a libertarian anything that increases the ability of a 3rd party go gain traction interest me but something smells very off about the recent uptick in discussion of alternatives. If these changes were actually beneficial to the underdog in the general case you'd see them being pushed by the left or the right on a state by state basis depending on the political make up of any given state. The parties aren't run by…

The main benefit of FPTP, for third parties, is that they can hijack elections by acting as "anti-tiebreaker" (Threatening to turn their nearest ally into a lose by joining the election, unless that nearest ally adopts their platform). This is why third parties generally (and openly) advocate for FPTP.

Of course, the simple and well-tested solution is to reduce the power of the Executive, move power to Parliament, and assign power proportionally to parties.

Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#19

Post by DebtDeflation »

It seems to me that Approval Voting might have the unintended negative consequence of electing a joke candidate, since you do not rank your choices nor are you limited to how many you can choose. Unfortunately, many voters would not give a second thought to ticking "Mickey Mouse" or similar in addition to their main choice and alternates, since there is no tradeoff involved. Under IRV or Ranked Choice, few voters would likely rank the joke candidate high.

Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#20

Post by timeimp »

EarthMephit wrote: post #13
schuyler2d wrote: post #5

Article makes some good arguments for approval voting, but the "Ballot Spoilage" argument is a bit disingenuous. Ballots can't be spoiled in approval voting because any set of circles can be filled in. However it's a lot easier to corrupt a ballot undetected. Just fill in more bubbles for your candidate.

The argument for "Ballot Simplicity" is misleading too They seem to have tried to intentionally tried to create a much more complicated ballot paper for IRV Here's a sample of an Australian IRV voting form: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/20...

And what's great about said form is the order is determined by draw of a hat. Literally.
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