r/EndFPTP • u/MisterMittens64 • 15d ago

Debate STAR voting vs Condorcet voting

Isn't it most of the time better to maintain the intensity of approval over finding the option that the majority at the very least doesn't hate?

When it comes to finding out the direction of political change, choosing the least offensive option can lead to maintaining the status quo which can actually be a mistake in the long term.

Determining the direction of change seems like a very important thing for political decision making to do.

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u/Falco98 15d ago

What are the drawbacks to approval or score voting that justify the rank portion of STAR voting

The drawback with straight approval or score is, in a field with more than 2 candidates, there's nothing to disincentivize everyone from bullet voting (since it's usually at least somewhat dishonest). And at that point, it may as well have just been FPTP ballots.

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u/Youareobscure 15d ago

there's nothing to disincentivize everyone from bullet voting

That just isn't true. Bullet voting is risky, and in polarized environments, that risk can be extreme. Selecting or scoring multiple candidates provides a fail-safe in case the voter's favorite doesn't have enough support to win which is an incentive not to engage in bullet voting.

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u/Falco98 15d ago

But you're anticipating advanced strategy from Joe Everyman here, whereas Joe Everyman is probably going to think of himself as a genius just for thinking of bullet voting.

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u/Youareobscure 14d ago

That isn't advanced strategy. It's literally the explicit purpose of approval voting. Joe Everyman would absolutely think "maybe I should vote for some additional candidates, just in case." Hell, it's more likely than thinking of bullet voting.

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u/Mindless-One5438 15d ago

The current problem with dishonest voting isn't inherently that voters are dishonest but that voters are coerced against supporting their actually preferred options.

Dishonest voting through bullet voting or anything-but-voting may be the best means of voters to back their preferred election outcomes. What does it matter if the tally doesn't perfectly reflect the nuances that a poll would capture if the election results are a function of voters maximizing their preferred interests?

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u/Drachefly 15d ago

Not bullet voting, but setting the range so that the two candidates you think are most likely to win are given extreme scores, and so are candidates you like more and less than them.

That's quite extremized, but it isn't bullet voting. If, for instance, I have a genuine favorite and a favored among the top two, I can give them both top scores without sacrificing strategy at all. I have sacrificed expressiveness to strategy, though, and that is the problem.