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Approval voting is a single-winner electoral system in which voters mark all the candidates they support, instead of just choosing one. The candidate with the highest approval rating is elected. Approval voting is currently in use for government elections in St. Louis, Missouri and Fargo, North Dakota.
Effect on elections
Research by social choice theorists Steven Brams and Dudley R. Herschbach found that approval voting would increase voter participation, prevent minor-party candidates from being spoilers, and reduce negative campaigning.[1] Brams’ research concluded that approval can be expected to elect majority-preferred candidates in practical election scenarios, avoiding the center squeeze common to ranked-choice voting and primary elections.[2][3]
One study showed that approval would not have chosen the same two winners as plurality voting (Chirac and Le Pen) in the first round of the 2002 French presidential election; it instead would have chosen Chirac and Jospin as the top two candidates to proceed to the runoff.
In the actual election, Le Pen lost by an overwhelming margin in the runoff, 82.2% to 17.8%, a sign that the true top two candidates had not been found. In the approval voting survey primary, Chirac took first place with 36.7%, compared to Jospin at 32.9%. Le Pen, in that study, received 25.1% and so would not have made the cut to the second round. In the real primary election, the top three were Chirac, 19.9%, Le Pen, 16.9%, and Jospin, 16.2%.[4] A study of various “evaluative voting” methods (approval and score voting) during the 2012 French presidential election showed that “unifying” candidates tended to do better, and polarizing candidates did worse, as compared to under plurality voting.[5]
Operational impacts
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- Simple to tally—Approval ballots can be counted by some existing machines designed for plurality elections, as ballots are cast, so that final tallies are immediately available after the election, with relatively few if any upgrades to equipment.
- Just one round—Approval can remove the need for multiple rounds of voting, such as a primary or a run-off, simplifying the election process.
- Avoids Overvotes—Approval voting does not have the notion of overvotes, where voting for one more than allowed will cancel the entire opportunity to vote. In plurality elections, overvotes have to be reviewed and resolved if possible while in approval voting, no time is wasted on this activity.
Usage
Current electoral use
Latvia
The Latvian parliament uses a modified version of approval voting within open list proportional representation, in which voters can cast either positive (approval) votes, negative votes or neither for any number of candidates.[6]
United States
Missouri
In November 2020, St. Louis, Missouri, passed Proposition D with 70% voting to authorize a variant of approval (unified primary) for municipal offices.[7] In 2021, the first mayoral election with approval voting saw Tishaura Jones and Cara Spencer move on to the general with 57% and 46% support. Lewis Reed and Andrew Jones were eliminated with 39% and 14% support, resulting in an average of 1.6 candidates supported by each voter in the 4 person race.[8]North Dakota
In 2018, Fargo, North Dakota, passed a local ballot initiative adopting approval for the city’s local elections, becoming the first United States city and jurisdiction to adopt approval.[9][10] Previously in 2015, a Fargo city commissioner election had suffered from six-way vote-splitting, resulting in a candidate winning with an unconvincing 22% plurality of the vote.[11]
The first election was held June 9, 2020, selecting two city commissioners, from seven candidates on the ballot.[12] Both winners received over 50% approval, with an average 2.3 approvals per ballot, and 62% of voters supported the change to approval in a poll.[13] A poll by opponents of approval was conducted to test whether voters had in fact voted strategically according to the Burr dilemma.[14] They found that 30% of voters who bullet voted did so for strategic reasons, while 57% did so because it was their sincere opinion.[15][16] Fargo’s second approval election took place in June 2022, for mayor and city commission. The incumbent mayor was re-elected from a field of 7 candidates, with an estimated 65% approval, with voters expressing 1.6 approvals per ballot, and the two commissioners were elected from a field of 15 candidates, with 3.1 approvals per ballot.[17]
In 2023, the North Dakota legislature passed a bill which intended to ban approval voting. The bill was vetoed by governor Doug Burgum, citing the importance of “home rule” and allowing citizens control over their local government. The legislature attempted to overrule the veto but failed.[18]
Use by organizations
Approval has been used in privately administered nomination contests by the Independent Party of Oregon in 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2016. Oregon is a fusion voting state, and the party has cross-nominated legislators and statewide officeholders using this method; its 2016 presidential preference primary did not identify a potential nominee due to no candidate earning more than 32% support.[19][20][21] The party switched to using STAR voting in 2020.[22][23]
It is also used in internal elections by the American Solidarity Party;[24] the Green Parties of Texas[25][26] and Ohio;[27] the Libertarian National Committee;[28] the Libertarian parties of Texas,[29] Colorado,[30][31] Arizona,[32] and New York;[33] Alliance 90/The Greens in Germany;[34] and the Czech[35] and German Pirate Party.[36][37]
Approval has been adopted by several societies: the Society for Social Choice and Welfare (1992),[38] Mathematical Association of America (1986),[39] the American Mathematical Society,[40] the Institute of Management Sciences (1987) (now the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences),[41] the American Statistical Association (1987),[42] and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (1987). The IEEE board in 2002 rescinded its decision to use approval. IEEE Executive Director Daniel J. Senese stated that approval was abandoned because “few of our members were using it and it was felt that it was no longer needed.”[3]
Historical
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Robert J. Weber coined the term “Approval Voting” in 1971.[43] It was more fully published in 1978 by political scientist Steven Brams and mathematician Peter Fishburn.[44]
Historically, several voting methods that incorporate aspects of approval have been used:
- Approval was used for papal conclaves between 1294 and 1621, with an average of about forty cardinals engaging in repeated rounds of voting until one candidate was listed on at least two-thirds of ballots.[45]
- In the 13th through 18th centuries, the Republic of Venice elected the Doge of Venice using a multi-stage process that featured random selection and voting that allowed approval of multiple candidates.[46][47]
- According to Steven J. Brams, approval was used for unspecified elections in 19th century England.[48]
- The Secretary-General of the United Nations is elected using approval/disapproval voting in the Security Council, with the exception that permanent members of the Security Council may veto candidates.[49][50]
- Approval was used in Greek legislative elections from 1864 to 1923, after which it was replaced with party-list proportional representation.[51]
- Sequential proportional approval voting was used in Swedish elections in the early 20th century, prior to being replaced by party-list proportional representation.
The idea of approval was adopted by X. Hu and Lloyd Shapley in 2003 in studying authority distribution in organizations.[52]
Strategic voting
See also: Tactical voting § Approval voting
