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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 2060958" data-attributes="member: 7240">I've read the Citizens for Approval Voting description. First of all, Conaill, what is being suggested here is not "approval voting"; it is a particular kind of approval voting process. Just as there are over 100 kinds of proportional representation systems in use in the world today, there are many kinds of approval voting. The definition of "approval voting" is not the domain of non-profit advocates of a particular variant of the system, nor is it under the control of random wikipedia volunteers. Approval voting, in mathematical discourse, refers to a family of systems, of which the one you recommend is a member.I do not support your particular approval voting model for the ENNies because, like Borda counting, it deforms people's articulation of their non-first preferences. Here's what I mean. Going back to my example of the fictional five finalists, let's recap. The Edwards text and the Gygax text are frontrunners. If I am a supporter of Gygax and Edwards is the closest competitor, I have no incentive to vote for it because doing so will effectively cancel my Gygax vote. Let's suppose there's a tie. Gygax has 454 votes; Edwards has 454 votes. If I just vote for Gygax, I break the tie and Gygax wins; if I also give a vote to Edwards, I effectively cancel my vote in favour of Gygax. Therefore, as with Borda, the only products for which I can safely vote without the risk of cancelling my vote for my favourite product are inferior and unpopular ones. Similarly, if I am a supporter of Platform Sandals, it would be completely irrational for me to use any of my additional votes to vote for any other products at all because nearly all of them are likely ahead of the product I like and I would be effectively cancelling my own vote by voting for them.This brings me to the important question of: who has an incentive to cast multiple votes? Answer: someone who hates a particular product and whose priority is for it to be beaten at all costs. So, a person who despised the Edwards book to the point where they didn't care who beat it or what the best book was would have an incentive to vote for every single product except for it. If one looks at the approval voting site, we can see that this kind of political thinking is informing the association's ideology. What the association is concerned about is people who support fringe parties still being able to have their votes count against the candidate they really despise. What approval voting, as described by the association you support, Conaill, does is to give Ralph Nader supporters a way of giving their own candidate a vote without giving up the opportunity to vote negatively against Bush and Constitution Party supporters an opportunity to vote for their candidate without giving up the opportunity to vote negatively against Kerry.Thus, while approval voting may be useful for solving the problem of strategic voting by fringe party supporters in American politics, it neither addresses nor solves the problems we might need to address here on ENWorld. First of all, there are no massive institutional frontrunners in the ENNies; nor are there protest candidates. Because there is no risk of Nader winning, there is no risk associated with voting for both him and Kerry. However, in my model, there is a genuine risk associated with voting for Edwards and Gygax if you actually really do like one better than the other. IRV (formally Alternative Vote) does not have these problems. It allows one to indicate a first preference for your favourite product and a second preference for your next favourite product without any risk that indicating what your second preference is will result in the defeat of your first choice. The model of approval voting you suggest, on the other hand, may result in the defeat of your favourite product if you honestly indicate your second preference. As such, it should not be considered for ENNies voting.</blockquote>

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