You’re given a list of candidates, and you can select however many of them you approve of being in office. Votes are then tallied, and whoever has the highest approval total is who gets voted in.
Not who brought it up, but it’s essentially just checking a box if you approve of the candidate, and check as many boxes as you want. Highest number of box checks wins. I’d take it over first past the post, but I prefer RCV still. Proponents of approval voting say it helps weed out extreme candidates, but I find the most extreme candidates in the US have historically been a huge net win, so I’d prefer to give them a better shot at winning.
I’m not sure if Approval would weed out extremists in practice or not, but using the current voter behavior under FPTP and extrapolating to Approval doesn’t really hold water. Even in Fargo and St. Louis we’re already seeing different voting behavior, where only 30% of voters chose to be strategic in who they vote for. Under a FPTP election you pretty much have to make a strategic decision.
Personally I think their recent website remodel really took a lot of the meat and potatoes out of their presentation, but I’m not a media guru, so what do I know?
Can you tell more about approval voting? I haven’t heard of it
You’re given a list of candidates, and you can select however many of them you approve of being in office. Votes are then tallied, and whoever has the highest approval total is who gets voted in.
Oh fascinating! Thank you
So I don’t get to prioritize one candidate over the other? I can only vote “approve” or “disapprove”?
These are rhetorical questions and I know the answers, but dang, you failed to explain the “ranked” part of “ranked choice”…
That’s because I didn’t explain ranked choice voting, I explained approval voting… They’re two different things
Guess I’m dumb. Tbh this is an expected outcome.
Not who brought it up, but it’s essentially just checking a box if you approve of the candidate, and check as many boxes as you want. Highest number of box checks wins. I’d take it over first past the post, but I prefer RCV still. Proponents of approval voting say it helps weed out extreme candidates, but I find the most extreme candidates in the US have historically been a huge net win, so I’d prefer to give them a better shot at winning.
I’m not sure if Approval would weed out extremists in practice or not, but using the current voter behavior under FPTP and extrapolating to Approval doesn’t really hold water. Even in Fargo and St. Louis we’re already seeing different voting behavior, where only 30% of voters chose to be strategic in who they vote for. Under a FPTP election you pretty much have to make a strategic decision.
Other folks have let you know what’s up. You can read more about it at https://electionscience.org/
Personally I think their recent website remodel really took a lot of the meat and potatoes out of their presentation, but I’m not a media guru, so what do I know?