Approval voting


Approval voting is a single-winner rated voting system where voters can approve of as many candidates as they like instead of choosing one. The method is designed to eliminate vote-splitting while keeping election administration simple and easy-to-count. Approval voting has been used in both organizational and political elections to improve representativeness and voter satisfaction.
Critics of approval voting have argued the simple ballot format is a disadvantage, as it forces a binary choice for each candidate.

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. 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.
One study showed that approval would not have chosen the same two winners as plurality voting in the first round of the 2002 French presidential election; it instead would have chosen Chirac and Lionel 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%. A study of various evaluative voting methods 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.

Operational impacts

  • 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.

    Use

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 votes, negative votes or neither for any number of candidates.

United States

;Missouri
In November 2020, St. Louis, Missouri, passed Proposition D with 70% voting to authorize a variant of approval for municipal offices. 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.
;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. Previously in 2015, a Fargo city commissioner election had suffered from six-way vote-splitting, resulting in a candidate winning with 22% plurality of the vote.
The first election was held June 9, 2020, selecting two city commissioners, from seven candidates on the ballot. 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. A poll by opponents of approval was conducted to test whether voters had in fact voted strategically according to the Burr dilemma. They found that 30% of voters who bullet voted did so for strategic reasons, while 57% did so because it was their sincere opinion. 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.
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. In April 2025, Governor Kelly Armstrong signed a bill banning ranked-choice voting and approval voting in the state, ending the practice in Fargo.
Utah
Emily Buss #2025 special primary

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. The party switched to using STAR voting in 2020.
It is also used in internal elections by the American Solidarity Party; the Green Parties of Texas and Ohio; the Libertarian National Committee; the Libertarian parties of Texas, Colorado, Arizona, and New York; Alliance 90/The Greens in Germany; and the Czech and German Pirate Party.
Approval has been adopted by several societies: the Society for Social Choice and Welfare, Mathematical Association of America, the American Mathematical Society, the Institute of Management Sciences , the American Statistical Association, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Steven Brams' analysis of the 5-candidate 1987 Mathematical Association of America presidential election shows that 79% of voters cast a ballot for one candidate, 16% for 2 candidates, 5% for 3, and 1% for 4, with the winner earning the approval of 1,267 of 3,924 voters. 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."
Approval voting was used for Dartmouth Alumni Association elections for seats on the College Board of Trustees, but after some controversy it was replaced with traditional runoff elections by an alumni vote of 82% to 18% in 2009. Dartmouth students started to use approval voting to elect their student body president in 2011. In the first election, the winner secured the support of 41% of voters against several write-in candidates. In 2012, Suril Kantaria won with the support of 32% of the voters. In 2013, 2014 and 2016, the winners also earned the support of under 40% of the voters. Results reported in The Dartmouth show that in the 2014 and 2016 elections, more than 80 percent of voters approved of only one candidate. Students replaced approval voting with plurality voting before the 2017 elections.

Historical

coined the term "Approval Voting" in 1971. It was more fully published in 1978 by political scientist Steven Brams and mathematician Peter Fishburn.
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.
  • 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.
  • According to Steven J. Brams, approval was used for unspecified elections in 19th century England.
  • The Secretary-General of the United Nations is elected in a multi-round straw poll process where, in each round, members of the Security Council may approve or disapprove of candidates, or decide to express no opinion. Disapproval by permanent members of the Security Council is similar to a veto. A candidate with no vetoes, at least nine votes, and more votes than any other candidate is considered to be likely to be supported by the Security Council in its formal recommendation vote.
  • Approval was used in Greek legislative elections from 1864 to 1923, after which it was replaced with party-list proportional representation.
  • 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.

Strategic voting

Overview

Approval voting allows voters to select all the candidates whom they consider to be reasonable choices.
Strategic approval differs from ranked voting methods where voters are generally forced to reverse the preference order of two options, which if done on a larger scale can cause an unpopular candidate to win. Strategic approval, with more than two options, involves the voter changing their approval threshold. The voter decides which options to give the same rating, even if they were to have a preference order between them. This leaves a tactical concern any voter has for approving their second-favorite candidate, in the case that there are three or more candidates. Approving their second-favorite means the voter harms their favorite candidate's chance to win. Not approving their second-favorite means the voter helps the candidate they least desire to beat their second-favorite and perhaps win.
Approval technically allows for but is strategically immune to push-over and burying.
Bullet voting occurs when a voter approves only candidate "a" instead of both "a" and "b" for the reason that voting for "b" can cause "a" to lose. The voter would be satisfied with either "a" or "b" but has a moderate preference for "a". Were "b" to win, this hypothetical voter would still be satisfied. If supporters of both "a" and "b" do this, it could cause candidate "c" to win. This creates the "chicken dilemma", as supporters of "a" and "b" are playing chicken as to which will stop strategic voting first, before both of these candidates lose.
Compromising occurs when a voter approves an additional candidate who is otherwise considered unacceptable to the voter to prevent an even worse alternative from winning.