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Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

electionscience.org

31–40 of 96 posts

Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#31
post #18

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, an…

Interesting idea, but it definitely doesn't pan out that way in Canada. The NDP and Liberals happily knee-cap themselves into a vote split.

Though there is also some precedent in Canada with previous Conservative party mergers.

Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#32
post #25

Surely this disenfranchises those most willing to compromise, who are probably going to end up being those who support small parties? Let's say you a Right and Left party, and breakout Far Left which is actually very popular but has previously lacked electoral support due to its 'outsider' status. People's favourites might look like this: Right: 30% Left: 30% Far left: 40% However, 75% of Far Left favourites actually…

> So we are left with 'establishment' mediocrity instead of the most popular result.

In this case, Left is the most democratic winner of the race, also known as the Condorcet winner (assuming Right supporters would support Left over Far Left in a two-person race between them). However, not all elections have a Condorcet winner. Also however, approval voting doesn't guarantee the Condorcet winner wins the race (if one exists), but it's an improvement over FPTP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_criterion

Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#34
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 [ ] [ ] [ ]

this is a non-US problem - in India, we typically have a dozen candidates in every election constituency. IRV is not very practical.

In Australia we have tens of MP candidates in most electorates as well as several dozen senate party candidates with hundreds of individual senator candidates.

IRV works perfectly fine here, though in the case of the senate does result in quite wide ballot papers. But if you only have a dozen candidates it's very simple -- you have a list of names and the voter specifies what preference they have (1st, 2nd, 3rd) in the box next to their name.

Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#35
I really like Wikipedia's page comparing voting systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_system...

No voting system is perfect but Approval Voting is my favorite. Still, most schemes that people have put forward are far better than the First Past the Post and there's been some momentum for IRV in Mass, where I live, so I've been helping with canvassing and it looks like our efforts might be paying off.

Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#36
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yet this would then increase spoilage significantly would it not?

It could be an additional multiple choice field, with N+1 options. Both would need to be filled in for the form to be valid.

Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#38

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…

Good winning over Ideal is a desired outcome when Ideal doesn't have the votes to win. That's one of the main attractions of non-plurality voting. The point of approval voting is not to rank candidates as Ideal > Good > Bad, that's what IRV is. Approval voting says, "These candidates are equally acceptable to me, so I'll be happy if any of them win over the candidates I didn't vote for."

Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#39
What the article misses is that there are alternatives better than BOTH approval or IRV. I will always find "Approval" to be unsatisfying because I want to say I like A more than I like B. I will always find IRV to be dumb because it has bad outcomes and for no additional cost or complexity those ranked ballots could have been counted by a Condorcet method that results in better democracy. https://bolson.org/irv/

Re: Approval Voting versus Instant Runoff Voting

#40

What the article misses is that there are alternatives better than BOTH approval or IRV. I will always find "Approval" to be unsatisfying because I want to say I like A more than I like B. I will always find IRV to be dumb because it has bad outcomes and for no additional cost or complexity those ranked ballots could have been counted by a Condorcet method that results in better democracy. https://bolson.org/irv/

>because it has bad outcomes and for no additional cost or complexity those ranked ballots could have been counted by a Condorcet method that results in better democracy.

Can you show how the differences in outcomes is better using the Condorcet method?

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