Approval Voting and Combined Approval Voting

Advantages of Approval Voting (AV)

Combined Approval Voting (CAV)

Approval Voting in America

AV & CAV Simple Methods That Work

You can only vote for one candidate with our current voting method, Choose 1 plurality voting. AV eliminates vote splitting and spoilers by enabling you to vote for both your preferred major party candidate and your favorite third-party and independent candidates.

Approval Voting is simple; approve the candidates you like. The candidate approved by the largest number of voters wins. You can support more than one candidate without fear of vote splitting or the spoiler effect.

Video by the Center for Election Science, Creative Commons License 3.0

The Best Voting Methods

Approval Voting (AV) and its sister system Combined Approval Voting (CAV) two of our favorite voting methods for single-winner elections. Our other favorite is BTR-Score. AV and CAV favor candidates with broad support. BTR-Score will always elect a candidate who can beat all other candidates one-on-one. In a rare election with no "Beats All" winner, it will elect a deserving winner transparently.

Both are far superior to traditional Choose1 plurality voting. Defenders of the status quo oppose any voting method proposed to replace Choose 1 voting, as its defects preserve two-party rule.

AV & CAV Advantages

The Candidate Broad Support Wins

AV rewards candidates who build consensus and coalitions. Being hyper partisan is a poor strategy AV races. AV makes every voter more powerful by giving them more options. This forces candidates to engage with voters, not ignore them.

Civilized Campaigns

To win, candidates must reach beyond their base. This is a powerful incentive to run positive campaigns. Voters can refuse to approve candidates who use divisive rhetoric. Too many current campaigns focus on getting out the base with messages of anger.

AV & CAV Eliminate Vote Splitting and Spoilers

In a race with a good minor party candidate, you often must vote for a mediocre major party candidate to prevent a terrible major party candidate from winning. Good has no chance. AV is fair to all candidates.

The spoiler effect causes "minor" candidates to lose votes in every election. Their voter support is always under-reported. Efforts to create publicity, recruit members, raise funds, and win elections are sabotaged. This is a key reason why our political system is stuck in the swamp.

The spoiler effect can also defeat major party candidates, as seen with Al Gore in 2000. In 2024, Robert Kennedy Jr threatened Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Trump was smart enough to give him a job.

Because you can vote for more than one candidate, AV eliminates vote splitting and spoilers.

Primary Elections

The purpose of primary elections is to determine the candidate with the broadest support among a group of similar contenders. AV is well-suited for this task.

Center Squeeze Effect

If candidate Mary Moderate is preferred by fellow moderates, and she is the second choice for both Republicans and Democrats, Mary will have the highest overall support. To squeeze Mary from the race, conservative and liberal candidates will woo moderate voters. If they think they can get away with it, some candidates will send different messages to different groups. Approval voting gives Mary Moderate a fair chance to prove her support.

Resistance to Organized Strategy

A strategic voting campaign requires precise knowledge of voter intent to develop an effective winning strategy. Many voters would need to be organized. In an approval race, a strategic campaign could easily hurt the wrong candidate.

Choose 1 voting has a strategic weakness. A SuperPAC can run an independent candidate who will draw votes from the candidate they dislike.

Constitutional Complience

AV & CAV comply with state constitutions that require “a plurality of the votes” or the “highest,” “largest,” or “greatest” number of votes.

Easy Change

Except for the instructions, approval ballots are the same as Choose 1 ballots. All voting machines can handle AV ballots, and we can count the results at each polling location.

Combined Approval Voting (CAV)

Traditional CAV offers voters three choices: approve (1), neutral (0), and disapprove (-1). The highest score win.

An alternative CAV method (ballot below) complies with state constitutions that require election winners to hive the "highest" "greatest" or "largest" number of votes. Voters cast 2 votes for candidates they approve, 1 vote for neutral candidates and 0 votes for candidates they disapprove. Blanks equal 0 votes. The candidate with the highest number of votes wins.

CAV shares the advantages of Approval voting; but it provides voters with three options instead of two. Your vote will better express your opinions of the candidates. AV and CAV will work best if voters study and rate all candidates.

Approval Voting in America

St. Louis Missouri

The City of St. Louis, Missouri, uses AV in open primaries for mayor and Board of Aldermen with top two run-offs.
The Center for Election Science published an inspiring and concise article: Success Stories: St, Louis Before and After Approval Voting.

Fargo North Dakota

On June 9th 2020, Fargo ND became the first US city to use AV, electing John Strand and Arlette Preston to the City Commission. This was a two-winner at-large election with seven candidates. Yes, you can use AV in multi-winner elections. Fargo held their second AV election in 2022.[1]

North Dakota Bans Approval Voting

Gov. Kelly Armstrong signed legislation banning the use of approval voting and ranked choice voting in North Dakota.
His statement (below) ignored the major flaws of Choose 1 plurality voting and the key advantages of approval voting. Gov. Armstrong also ignored the votes cast by the citizens of Fargo, North Dakota, who approved the use of approval voting with 64% of the vote.

“Now more than ever, we need a consistent, efficient and easy-to-understand voter experience across our entire state to maintain trust in our election system.” Gov. Kelly Armstrong

Plurality voting is consistent, but not in a good way. It is prone to vote splitting and spoilers in every election with three or more candidates. It is always unfair to third party and independent candidates. Plurality voting efficiently locks in two-party rule. Are you satisfied with the two parties? The implication that AV is too difficult for voters to understand is an insult to the voters of North Dakota.

The true reason for the ban is the protection of the status quo.

Organizations Using Approval Voting

United Nations to elect the Secretary General
Mathematical Association of America
American Statistical Association

Reputation

In 2010 Jean-Francois Laslier conducted a pole of 22 participants in a voting procedures workshop, including leading proponents of the Condorcet principle and Alternative voting (the traditional name for Ranked Choice voting).
When Laslier proposed using Approval voting for the poll no one objected, as Approval voting works well for polls with many candidates, in this case eighteen voting systems.

Approval voting won with 16 out of a possible 22 approvals, Alternative Voting (RCV) was second with 10 approvals. Choose 1 plurality voting received zero approvals. Read Lasliers’s report.

Given the advantages of AV and CAV over Choose 1 voting, we predict increased adoption in future elections.

Strategy for Approval Voting

Strategy for voters is discussed in an appendix below the sources.

Tell your elected representatives about Approval Voting

Sources

The Center for Election Science, Electowiki, and Robert J. Weber, the inventor of Approval Voting, are the primary sources for this article.

The leading proponent for Approval voting is the Center for Election Science. Their site has many articles about Approval voting and election theory.

Combined Approval Voting (CAV) on Wikipedia

Electowiki provides a thorough explanation of Approval Voting

Robert J. Weber, the originator of Approval voting presents a technical argument supporting the utility of his creation in his paper Approval Voting.

Appendix

Strategy for Approval Voters

The Center for Election Science, the leading proponent of approval voting, suggests this 2-Step strategy for voters:

Step 1: Who is likely to win? Consider the relative utility of each. Of those candidates, approve all whom you prefer. You may end up voting for more than one candidate within this group, depending on who is challenging your preferred candidate(s).

Step 2: Who is less likely to win? Of those candidates, approve of all you wish to give support.
In all cases, you can safely approve your favorite candidate. If your favorite cannot beat the other candidates you like, your favorite may lose to the strongest candidate you dislike. The key question: must you vote for an average candidate to prevent a bad candidate from winning?

Approval voting works well if voters pursue their best interests as described above and ignore candidate pleas to “vote only for me”. A detailed AV strategy is presented in an appendix below the sources.

Detailed Approval Voting Strategy

(this may be overkill)

In all approval races, you can safely approve your favorite candidate. If your favorite cannot beat the other candidates you like, your favorite may lose to the strongest candidate you dislike. The key question is, must you vote for an average candidate to prevent a bad candidate from winning?

For these examples, Rachel Reasonable is your favorite candidate. You also like Peter Popular, but not as much. Dan Donorclass is the major party candidate you fear. The other candidates - Bob Bigmouth, Irene Independent and Carl Crazy - are not popular or well-funded. They have no chance of winning.

In all cases, you can safely approve your favorite candidate and support for any or all the “minor” candidates who do not have a chance of winning: Bob Bigmouth, Irene Independent and Carl Crazy.

1 - The polls show a very close race between Rachel Reasonable, Peter Popular and Dan Donorclass. Your primary concern is to prevent Dan Donorclass from winning. Approve the candidates you prefer to Dan who have a real chance of defeating him; Rachel Reasonable and Peter Popular.

2 - The polls show a very close race between Rachel Reasonable and Peter Popular; Dan Donorclass has no chance of winning. Here you would vote for Rachel Reasonable, but not Peter; because a vote for Peter could cause Rachel to lose.

3 - Dan Donorclass and Peter Popular are in a very close race, Rachel Reasonable has little hope. You vote for Peter to help him defeat Dan and you vote for Rachel to express your support for her.

4 - Dan Donorclass and Rachel Reasonable are in a very close race. Peter Popular is not so popular, he has little hope. Vote for Rachel, your favorite. You could vote for Peter if you want to express support for him.

How should you vote if you do not have trustworthy polling information? Example 1 covers the situation when you fear a candidate like Dan Donorclass; you approve all candidates better than Dan who have a chance at beating Dan.

What if you fear none of the candidates? Always vote for your favorite candidate. If you are not sure your favorite can beat the leading candidate you dislike, vote for the candidate(s) who are significantly better.

If your favorite cannot beat the other candidates you like, your favorite will probably lose to the strongest candidate you dislike.

Many candidates will tell their supporters to “vote only for me”. If you heed this request, you may harm the chances of your second favorite candidate and help candidates you dislike. If all voters only choose their favorite candidate, Approval voting will work just like Choose One voting.

Approval voting works well if voters pursue their best interests as described above and ignore candidate pleas to “vote only for me.”