I am immensely pissed off at the mathematical illiteracy of everyone.

[Blahface]

I prefer approval voting. More specifically, I'd prefer a non-partisan primary that uses approval voting to get two candidates for the general election. I'm not a big fan of IRV ( I don't like calling it rank order voting as there are many different types of ranking systems), but it would be a step up from first-past-the-post. Since it is the only reform being offered up in Maine right now, I hope the ballot measure passes.

The thing I like about approval voting is that it is much better for issue advocacy. Let's say we have a political party called the Science Party that advocates for science. Under IRV, this party's candidate would be eliminated early on with maybe 5% of the vote and the party would have to put the Democrat ahead of the Republican on their preference list. The Science Party isn't going to have too much influence over the Democrats.

Under approval voting, the Science Party could endorse all the candidates it likes instead of just running a candidate. It could give a 5% direct boost to any candidate that earns their endorsement. There is a much greater incentive for all candidates to really pay attention to issues important to the Science Party.

Also, under approval voting, you can always support your favorite without being penalized. That is not quite true if you include the runoff with approval voting, but the penalty would be small in comparison to IRV or FPTP. Under IRV, the order of elimination matters. Good and otherwise electable candidates could get eliminated in the early rounds in favor of extremists who can't win in the later rounds. It has the same problem our primary elections have when the party elects someone who isn't viable in the general election.

The science party may be able to offer 5% of the vote for the support of their policies by a major party; but likely the racist party can offer 30%, the religious nutter party can offer 25%, the anti-vax party can offer 15%, and the conspiracy theorist party can offer 10%.

Be careful what you wish for.

With the controversial parties there would be a lot of people voting against them. The racist and religious parties may be able to get a candidate to 20-30%, but I think that is all that they'd get. At most, I think the anti-vax party would be able to get as a bloc is maybe 2% at most and then there would be a bunch of people voting against it.

 

[bilby]

The science party may be able to offer 5% of the vote for the support of their policies by a major party; but likely the racist party can offer 30%, the religious nutter party can offer 25%, the anti-vax party can offer 15%, and the conspiracy theorist party can offer 10%.

Be careful what you wish for.

With the controversial parties there would be a lot of people voting against them. The racist and religious parties may be able to get a candidate to 20-30%, but I think that is all that they'd get. At most, I think the anti-vax party would be able to get as a bloc is maybe 2% at most and then there would be a bunch of people voting against it.

I am touched by your faith in humanity; But sadly I cannot say that I share it.

 

[Blahface]

With the controversial parties there would be a lot of people voting against them. The racist and religious parties may be able to get a candidate to 20-30%, but I think that is all that they'd get. At most, I think the anti-vax party would be able to get as a bloc is maybe 2% at most and then there would be a bunch of people voting against it.

I am touched by your faith in humanity; But sadly I cannot say that I share it.

It's not quite the same, but when France was polled in the previous elections under a hypothetical approval voting system, the National Front never got much support.

2002 French Study
2007
2012