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Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 16, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Oh, yeah, I really, really like Approval voting. Kind of has a lot of the FPTP upsides in being very intuitive, feeling fair, few startup costs, easy public education, prevents shenanigans a lot of people dislike, what's not to like? Very little wonkery going on. You just say, vote for everyone you like, and that's it! Done!

Sure. It can hurt if you have a "true favorite", but if they are your true favorite, you can always just vote for them alone, easy. If you like one more than others, but are okay with others, that's kind of fine, it still does what it says on the tin. And if most people end up just doing single votes, that's mostly the current system, so doesn't feel like a big loss. It's also almost as expressive as IRV or other RCV formats with fewer downsides. The only major downside I can think of is that it makes it slightly harder for vote-counting, in the sense that we can clearly see by published totals if something is fishy. But even there, the security really isn't much worse than the current system, and in practice I think election offices are going to be releasing the overall ballot numbers anyways.