I like the idea but don't agree that all you do is vote above the cutoff. If there are 10 choices and I approve of 3, but I know my 7 and 9 are the only possible winners, I'll likely vote 1 2 3 7.

Your best strategy is to approve all candidates you prefer to the expected value of the winner. http://www.electology.org/score-voting-threshold-strategy

This works out well, tending to elect Condorcet winners. http://ScoreVoting.net/AppCW.html

Thanks. So the best strategy is even simpler!

So you do vote above the cutoff. But the optimal cutoff is really simple to find from the polls.

I don't think that works. Polls tell you the levels of support of the candidates, they don't give you the probability of each candidate winning which is what you need to figure out the expected value of the winner.

I guess it's back to the prediction markets (or fivethirtyeight) then.

I don't think other system require "playing the game" in the same way as approval voting. You can game any voting system by voting strategically, but approval voting seems unique in actually expecting people to have to vote strategically.

You can vote strategically in any deterministic voting method. There's nothing special about Approval Voting. People can vote honestly based on whether they approve (have a favorable opinion of) a candidate. Or they can be tactical and base the decision on probability of winning.

And in approval voting at least your strategy is very close to honesty.

Your strategic consideration only consists in choosing a cutoff.

> I don't think other system require "playing the game" in the same way as approval voting.

You must be joking? Almost no one ever votes their true preference in first-past-the-post. People usually vote for the lesser evil of the top two candidates, because any other strategy (like voting for who you'd actually like to win the election) just wastes your vote.

In any case, check out eg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting for other people's thoughts on the system. There's much more online about all aspects and pros and cons that we don't need to rehash.

Sorry, I tend to think of FPTP as being so messed up it doesn't qualify as a voting system. I was comparing approval voting to alternatives like Ranked Pairs/IRV/Borda etc.

Oh, OK. I am arguing for Approval Voting because it's the simplest voting system up from FPTP, and easy to explain.

Borda Count really invites the gaming, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borda_count#Potential_for_tact...

Borda is better than Plurality and IRV regardless of the amount of tactical voters.

http://ScoreVoting.net/BayRegsFig.html

Interesting. I'd have to look at that simulation.

What about cloning candidates? The simulation only looks at strategic voting.

The simulation uses random utility generators, which sometimes create situations where two candidates are highly similar and thus "partially" clones. The point is to model reality.

Compliance with "independence of clones" is in this property chart. http://scorevoting.net/CompChart.html

I get where you are coming from on Approval Voting. The simplicity of the system is very attractive.

Other systems might be slightly better. But Approval Voting is dead simple to explain, and you don't even need new ballot papers compared to plurality.

The only system that's generally better is Score Voting aka Range Voting. But you want to _avoid_ ranked voting methods.

http://ScoreVoting.net/NESD.html

I don't think the argument presented there works.

Consider the example with A, B, and C at the end. It claims that approval voting would probably elect C, but why? If the voters apply perfect strategy, B supporters won't approve C, and B will win. The same is true of range voting, where B supporters will give C a rating of zero.

It does not seem escapable that a majority voter block can dictate their wishes on the whole population by exaggerating their stated preferences.

As long as you need a majority, that's still very democratic? (If it was a plurality only, that would be harder.)

Yes, but the page in question is arguing that approval/rank voting is better because it doesn't always elect the majority's first choice.

I'm pretty convinced that for single winner elections approval voting is pretty great.

I haven't convinced myself when multiple people can get elected.