Am I correct in thinking that these problems are more obvious when using ranked-choice to elect a single candidate? When electing a number of people, it would be much better than just picking in order of number of votes.
This is all focused on single-winner elections, which is the main kind we have in the US.
The standard way elections for multiple slots are handled in the US is you vote for up to N people, and the N with the most votes win. Switching to approval voting would be as simple as changing “vote for up to N” to “vote for any number”.
(There’s also generalization of Instant Runoff called Single Transferrable Vote, which Cambridge MA uses for City Council)
Am I correct in thinking that these problems are more obvious when using ranked-choice to elect a single candidate? When electing a number of people, it would be much better than just picking in order of number of votes.
This is all focused on single-winner elections, which is the main kind we have in the US.
The standard way elections for multiple slots are handled in the US is you vote for up to N people, and the N with the most votes win. Switching to approval voting would be as simple as changing “vote for up to N” to “vote for any number”.
(There’s also generalization of Instant Runoff called Single Transferrable Vote, which Cambridge MA uses for City Council)
Here’s an example “vote for up to 4” ballot, for Boston City Council: https://www.cityofboston.gov/images_documents/Specimen Ballots for Nov 3 2015_tcm3-52198.pdf