| Approvals | # Voters | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| A | B | C | |
| Total: | |||
Instructions
This interactive demo is designed to illustrate how Approval Voting works as well as its pros and cons. Each row in the table represents a possible ballot permutation and how many people voted that way. Change the vote counts for each ballot permutation and then click VOTE to see the results.
The following allows you to change the number of candidates running.
The following allows you to remove a candidate without affecting the ballots.
| Candidate | Votes/Score |
|---|---|
| A | 0 |
| B | 0 |
| C | 0 |
Information / Examples / Voting Method Criteria
How it works
Approval Voting is very similar to the current system of simple Plurality, except that voters are allowed (and encouraged) to vote for all candidates they approve of. Ballots should look identical to present ballots, except with minor changes to the instructions.
Monotonicity
Ranking or rating a candidate higher should never cause that candidate to lose, nor should ranking or rating a candidate lower ever cause that candidate to win, assuming all other candidates remain rated or ranked the same.
[1]. Unsurprisingly, Approval Voting is monotonic. A candidate's final tally is directly dependent on how many voters indicate their approval of them.
The Spoiler Effect
A spoiler is a non-winning candidate whose presence on the ballot affects which candidate wins.
[2]
Spoilers are not an issue under Approval, either through vote splitting[3] or other means. Vote splitting is not an issue because each candidate can be approved or not approved of independently of the other candidates on a ballot. You can check for spoilers by removing a losing-candidate from the simulated election and recounting the votes.
Tactical Voting[4]
Tactical voting under Approval Voting falls into two categories, all/none and Bullet Voting. Approving of all or no candidates, while it may be a voter's honest preference, has no practical influence on the election, and thus these voters are better off being a little tactical. For voters that honestly approve of
all listed candidates, it is in their best interest to tactically not approve of their least favorite candidate. Similarly,
voters that disapprove of all candidates, are better off approving of their favorite, no matter how little they truly
like that candidate. Bullet voting is the practice of choosing just one candidate despite the ability to choose or rank more.
[5] The idea is that approving of candidates other than one's favorite increases the chances of the secondary candidate beating the favorite. This is true, but approving of secondary candidates also decreases the chance of one's unapproved candidates from winning.
One Person, One Vote
Another critique of Approval Voting is that it does not follow the principle of One Person, One Vote (OPOV), because it allows voters to "vote" for more than one candidate. This is a mis-application of OPOV, as it is actually about the relative voting power of voters within the same state.[6]