I'll also plug https://www.electionscience.org, an awesome and underfunded nonpr...

specialist · on July 22, 2020

Approval voting has best balance between fairness and simplicity. Election integrity wise, less complex is better.

RCV is a smidge more fair than Approval Voting and three smidges more complex. Both are much better than FPTP, by both criteria.

I support my local RCV effort. If I truly wanted Approval Voting, I should have put in the hard work.

Source: Worked as poll inspector, was an election integrity activist for about 10 years.

ClayShentrup · on July 25, 2020

Approval voting is fairer and better than IRV in every way.

https://www.electionscience.org/library/approval-voting-vers...

specialist · on July 25, 2020

Thanks. Great survey of all the talking points.

File under narcissism of small differences:

I've been equating RCV with Score Voting, not IRV. I'll review the literature and see where I'm wrong.

I do not support IRV. It's an election integrity nightmare for little or no gain over Approval Voting.

My introduction to election stuff was thru IRV advocacy. Then I learned about tabulation complexity.

Over time, my position changed to PR for assemblies and Approval Voting for executives. I now wonder if Approval Voting could (should) also be used for PR.

That's all to say my strong-opinions-loosely-held about voting systems is motivated by us forging a better democracy, not any particular implementation. I'll realpolitik support any path forward.

anchpop · on July 27, 2020

Approval Voting is just Score Voting with only two scores (0 and 1). Turns out you don't lose that much!