Approval voting is an

electoral system An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections m ...

in which voters can select many candidates instead of selecting only one candidate.

Description

Approval voting ballots show a list of the options of candidates running. Approval voting lets each voter indicate support for one or more candidates. Final tallies show how many votes each candidate received, and the winner is the candidate with the most support.

Effect on elections

Approval voting advocates

Steven Brams Steven J. Brams (born November 28, 1940 in Concord, New Hampshire) is an American game theory, game theorist and political scientist at the New York University Department of Politics. Brams is best known for using the techniques of game theory, p ...

and

Dudley R. Herschbach Dudley Robert Herschbach (born June 18, 1932) is an American chemist at Harvard University. He won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Yuan T. Lee and John C. Polanyi "for their contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elemen ...

predict that approval voting should increase voter participation, prevent minor-party candidates from being spoilers, and reduce negative campaigning. FairVote published a position paper arguing that approval voting has three flaws that undercut it as a method of voting and political vehicle (the group instead advocates for

Instant-runoff voting Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a type of ranked preferential voting method. It uses a majority voting rule in single-winner elections where there are more than two candidates. It is commonly referred to as ranked-choice voting (RCV) in the Un ...

). They argue that it can result in the defeat of a candidate who would win an absolute majority in a plurality election, can allow a candidate to win who might not win ''any'' support in a plurality election, and has incentives for tactical voting. The first two "flaws" are considered advantages by advocates of approval voting, as it chooses centrist candidates with broad appeal rather than polarizing candidates who appeal only to the majority.

The Center for Election Science The Center for Election Science (CES) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) electoral reform advocacy organization. It advocates for cardinal voting methods such as approva