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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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Damn it, we need an alternative to FPTP.

I favor approval voting. You vote to "approve" as many candidates as you want; the candidate with the most approving voters wins. Unlike RCV, there aren't situations where you win by being less popular, there are no spoiler effects, it is extremely simple, and you end up with centrist politicians instead of maximally divisive ones.

It’s my single-issue vote.

I will vote for any goddamn candidate who credibly supports approval or even ranked choice. I don’t care if it throws my vote away or if they’re otherwise detestable. I’ll advocate for others to do the same, too.

It hasn’t done any good yet.

there are no spoiler effects

I'm not sure this is true, because voters are not incentivized to vote entirely honestly.

Ie, if the true global popularity of candidates goes A > B > C

and everyone knows it, then people who honestly approve A,B but prefer B > A > C have some incentive to not vote A, because if the numbers are close then artificially dropping A's apparent popularity gives B a better shot. And then in response people who prefer A > B > C might counter by not voting A. And then seeing this turmoil people who prefer C might fail to vote A,B even if they do approve of them, because this gives C a chance to shoot up.

But the spoiler effects are certainly more limited, this issue only comes up when comparing multiple similar candidates that are simultaneously approved by individuals and close to each other in the rankings. It would do a better job of having people be able to support third party candidates and their true preferences (since you always want to include your actual favorite) and introduce more centrists while still hedging their bets on the lesser-of-two-evils candidate most likely to prevent the evil villain on the other side.