on the contrary, approval voting is specifically beloved by game theory experts for its immense resistance to tactical voting. for instance, NYU professor of political science and *game theory*, steven brams.

bayesian regret and voter satisfaction efficiency calculations show approval voting generally outperforming alternatives such as instant runoff voting ("ranked choice voting") with any mixture of strategic or honest voters.

https://www.rangevoting.org/BayRegsFig https://rpubs.com/Jameson-Quinn/VSE5key

part of the reason this happens is that the IRV/RCV tabulation mechanism flat out ignores much of the preference information on the ballot. https://www.rangevoting.org/IrvIgnoreExample.html

approval voting is also just much more resistant to gamesmanship. it satisfies the "favorite betrayal criterion", meaning it can never hurt you to support your favorite candidate with approval voting. for instance, my aunt voted for biden even tho she preferred warren, to try to stop trump. if she had been ranking them in a single IRV/RCV election, she would have analogously ranked biden in 1st even tho she preferred warren. this kind of tactic means electability is still key, and it disadvantages third party and independent candidates.

with approval voting by contrast, she might strategically vote for biden (her 2nd choice) but she would still be free to also approve warren, as that could not possibly cause a worse outcome for her.

the center for election science has a good compilation of the best articles on tactical voting.

https://electionscience.org/library/tactical-voting-basics/

there's also an excellent book on the topic, called "gaming the vote".

https://www.amazon.com/Gaming-Vote-Elections-Arent-About/dp/...

A great popular read that covers this and similar topics is William Poundstone's Gaming the Vote.

http://www.amazon.com/Gaming-Vote-Elections-Arent-About/dp/0...