An approval ballot, also called an unordered ballot, is a

ballot A ballot is a device used to cast votes in an election and may be found as a piece of paper or a small ball used in secret voting. It was originally a small ball (see blackballing) used to record decisions made by voters in Italy around the 16t ...

in which a voter may vote for any number of candidates simultaneously, rather than for just one candidate. Candidates that are selected in a voter's ballot are said to be ''approved'' by the voter; the other candidates are said to be ''disapproved'' or ''rejected''. Approval ballots do not let the voters specify a preference-order among the candidates they approve; hence the name ''unordered''. This is in contrast to

ranked ballots The term ranked voting (also known as preferential voting or ranked choice voting) refers to any voting system in which voters rank their candidates (or options) in a sequence of first or second (or third, etc.) on their respective ballots. Ran ...

, which are ordered. There are several

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

s that use approval balloting; they differ in the way in which the election outcome is determined: * In

approval voting Approval voting is an electoral system 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 i ...

, there is a single winner, and he/she is the candidate with the largest number of votes. * In

multiple non-transferable vote The multiple non-transferable vote (MNTV) is a group of voting system, in which voters elect several representatives at once, with each voter having more than one vote. MNTV uses multi-member electoral districts or only one district, which conta ...

(also called block voting) there is a fixed number (say ''k'') of winners, and they are the ''k'' candidates with the largest number of votes. * In other

multiwinner approval voting Multiwinner approval voting, also called approval-based committee voting, is a multi-winner electoral system that uses approval ballots. Each voter may select ("approve") any number of candidates, and multiple candidates are elected. The number of ...

systems, there is a fixed number ''k'' of winners, but they are determined by more complex procedures, in order to guarantee such properties as

justified representation Justified representation (JR) is a criterion for evaluating the fairness of electoral systems in multiwinner voting, particularly in multiwinner approval voting. It can be seen as an adaptation of the proportional representation criterion to appr ...

. Approval ballots let the voters express

dichotomous preferences In economics, dichotomous preferences (DP) are preference relations that divide the set of alternatives to two subsets: "Good" versus "Bad". From ordinal utility perspective, DP means that for every two alternatives X,Y: : X \preceq Y \iff X \in ...

Description

Approval voting ballots show a list of the candidates running for that seat for each office being contested. Next to each name is a checkbox (or another similar way to mark "Yes" or "No" for that candidate). Each candidate may be treated as a separate question: "Do you approve of this person for the job?" Approval voting lets each voter indicate support for one, some, or all candidates. Each ballot separates candidates into two groups: those supported and those that are not. Each candidate approved is considered preferred to any candidate not approved, while the voter's preferences among approved candidates is unspecified, and likewise, the voter's preferences among unapproved candidates is also unspecified.

Ballot types

Approval ballots can be of at least four semi-distinct forms. The simplest form is a blank ballot on which voters hand-write the names of the candidates they support. A more structured ballot lists all candidates, and voters mark each candidate they support. A more explicit structured ballot can list the candidates and provide two choices by each. (Candidate list ballots can include spaces for write-in candidates as well.) All four ballots are theoretically equivalent. The more structured ballots may aid voters in offering clear votes so they explicitly know all their choices. The Yes/No format can help to detect an "undervote" when a candidate is left unmarked and allow the voter a second chance to confirm the ballot markings are correct. The "single bubble" format is incapable of producing invalid ballots (which might otherwise be rejected in counting). Unless the second or fourth format is used, fraudulently adding votes to an approval voting ballot does not invalidate the ballot (that is, it does not make it appear inconsistent). Thus, approval voting raises the importance of ensuring that the "chain of custody" of ballots is secure.

References

{{Reflist * Ballots