Approved

We voted on Sunday. Most of the decisions were straightforward. The proposition about voting was the difficult one. I went back and forth on the approval voting question. I was thrown off yesterday by an analysis that focused on the fact that we're choosing two candidates for the general election, not a single candidate in the general election. That much I mentioned on the hangout. Later, though, I reframed my thinking. We're only keeping the separate general election because the state currently requires it. I think it's still OK to choose the best method for finding a single candidate. The winner will still have to win a second head to head vote, but I don't think that changes the optimal setup for the primary. In the end, I decided that if we want the equivalent of a third-party candidate to have a chance at winning, they need to be able to win even when voters slightly prefer the conventional candidates, and I think approval voting makes that more likely than ranked choice. Third party candidates will only win in instant runoff if a significant fraction of voters actually prefer them to the conventional candidates.

Rachel wanted to go to Rabbit Rabbit for bubble tea, so we had Nicole take us to Lower Queen Anne and I dropped off our ballots at the new box outside the grocery store there. We walked around Seattle Center drinking our tea before going into the used bookstore for a while. It was chilly, so I was glad to have ordered my tea hot. Rachel got hers iced. The bookstore didn't have anything I was especially looking for. We were planning to take the bus home, but it was a fifteen minute wait, so we started walking up the hill, instead, and ultimately walked all the way home. Rachel was asking questions about football positions, among other topics.

Eric had a friend over for a little while in the afternoon, then we went over to Paola's house for dinner.