I can't quite grasp this. Candidates A B C i prefer in that order. I look at the polls and see A and B are close, but i much prefer them to C, so I approve of A and B. But the results come in and B won over A by 1 vote. Lets say me and 5 other people thought and acted that way. We're disappointed because we were not able to express our preference.
Lets say we 5 people do the opposite and only approve of A because we want to avoid the above, but it turns out C wins by 1 vote over B. We're disappointed we took a gamble to avoid the first situation and ended up with the second.
I understand RCV 1 2 3 may lead to weird situations downballot and horse trading, I know those examples but they seem infinitely harder to game out and vote defensively on compared to approval.
The explanations of approval all seem to rely on the falsehood that the voter approves of their choices equally.
Lets say we 5 people do the opposite and only approve of A because we want to avoid the above, but it turns out C wins by 1 vote over B. We're disappointed we took a gamble to avoid the first situation and ended up with the second.
I understand RCV 1 2 3 may lead to weird situations downballot and horse trading, I know those examples but they seem infinitely harder to game out and vote defensively on compared to approval.
The explanations of approval all seem to rely on the falsehood that the voter approves of their choices equally.