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For Voters |
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The way we vote determines the people we elect. Voting isn't just checking a box - voting should be a survey of what you, a constituent, believe.
The widespread system of Single Choice voting means voters must make trade offs between their values, and who will win.
But voters don't have to vote this way. We can judge each candidate independently from each other.
Under approval voting lends support to candidates that have nuanced campaigns that appeal to a broad base. The likely winner in an Approval Voting election is the candidate who can build coalitions, propose nuanced solutions to complex problems, and represent the community as a whole, as opposed to just their party.
No. The term “one person one vote” refers to the weight of votes, not to how votes are expressed.
The U.S. Supreme Court made the “one person one vote” rule explicit in Reynolds v. Sims (377 U.S. 533). The rule stated that no vote should count more than any other so that it has unequal weight. This unequal weight would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. And it was Baker v. Carr (369 U.S. 186) that extended the Equal Protection Clause to districting issues. In Reynolds, the state of Alabama set up its districts so that they varied wildly in population. The districting was so bad that it gave some voters’ ballots as much as 41 times more weight than others. Because the weights of the ballots were different between districts, that violated the “one person one vote” rule.
A common misconception is that Approval Voting gives more weight to voters who vote for more candidates. To see why this isn’t the case, imagine a tied election between a liberal and two conservatives. Bob casts a vote for the liberal, while Alice casts an opposing vote for the two conservatives. After Bob and Alice have voted, the election is still tied. Bob and Alice have an opposite but equal effect on the election. Another way to think of it is that if you vote for all candidates, that has the same effect as not voting at all. The key here is that no voter has an unfair advantage. Effectively, every voter casts an “aye” or “nay” vote for every candidate.
Finally, consider that voters are already allowed to vote for multiple candidates in “at large” races. For instance, a city council may simultaneously elect three representatives. Some voters may vote for three candidates, while others may vote for only one or two candidates.
Our extensive analysis over the years overwhelmingly supports the view that Approval Voting is a much simpler and more democratic system than IRV. The results of Approval Voting elections are also much easier to understand than the numerous rounds of vote transfers that IRV utilizes. In an Approval Voting election, you would only see approval percentages and total votes for each candidate — much simpler than IRV. Don’t take our word on it. Click below for the Oakland 2010 IRV election results (simplified to show just later rounds). Do you think voters easily understood this?