i would strongly disagree with this assessment. i’ve studied voting theory for almost 20 years, was mentioned in the 2008 book “gaming the vote” by william poundstone, and co-founded the center for election science. full disclosure: ces promotes approval voting.

the intensity of support between different options actually impacts the strategic “approval threshold”, as explained here by by me, but citing the research of a princeton math phd named warren smith, who is arguably history’s greatest expert on voting methods. (smith owns the site and served as an editor on this.)

https://www.rangevoting.org/RVstrat6

few voters are this mathematically precise, but this is indeed the strategy the intuitively use to a close approximation. e.gh. i really prefer elizabeth warren, but biden’s not too bad and i’m really worried about trump winning, so i’m going to lower my threshold and approve them both.”

the aggregate result of these kinds of strategies over a variety of voting methods has been studied via computer simulation by both warren smith and contemporaries like jameson quinn, a harvard stats phd who also served with myself and smith on the board of ces. some results summarized here:

https://www.rangevoting.org/RVstrat6
https://electionscience.github.io/vse-sim/

suffice to say, that approval voting performs extremely well, and tends to elect the condorcet winner whenever one exists.

clay shentrup
portland, or