Approval Voting

There's a highly controversial subject that the Old Parties don't want you to know about, but which I think is something that you should know about, and that's "Approval Voting".

Here's the quick and dirty: Approval voting is easy to understand and you're probably already doing it, it's not as complicated as ranked-choice voting, and it does NOT violate the "one person, one vote" idea that so many people think it does.

If you're like most people, there are some things about one candidate that you like and some things about another candidate that you like, even if they are political adversaries. Some people who are almost evenly split between multiple opposing candidates will shun the ballot box because they can't decide which candidate to vote for. From a statistics perspective, NOT voting skews the results and gives the winner a false impression of what the people actually want.

I'm a computer programmer, and I think most of us will agree that a computer can do most of the work faster and with fewer errors. But with approval voting, counting can be done on an abacus and still be accurate. Quite simply, in races with more than two candidates, voters can choose as many candidates as they want to choose. The votes are tallied and the candidate with the most votes ... wins. 

The advantage for you, the voters, is that you can 'hedge your bets' (so to speak) behind multiple options. This maximizes the chance of a positive outcome (or, more to the point, one you can live with), and minimizes the chance of unwanted outcomes. Approval voting gives all voters the same ability which they don't have right now. 

Ranked-choice voting does something similar, but there's a hitch; you have to rank your choices as first, second, third, and so on. With approval voting, you just vote for the candidates you like. No more of the "lesser of two evils" type of voting.

Let's address the donkey and elephant in the room; approval voting does NOT violate "one person, one vote" which actually refers to the weight of each vote not that every person only gets to vote for one candidate. The real meaning of "one person, one vote" is that no individual voter's ballot should be given more weight than any other. With approval voting, all voters have equal opportunity to vote for as many candidates as they want, and each vote counts the same. For example, person 1 votes for Bob and Jim, but person 2 votes for Sally and Jim. Jim wins because he received two votes where each of the others received only one vote. That shows that all of the votes are counted equally and that no one ballot was given special treatment. 

Why don't the Old Parties want approval voting? Well, they don't mind it as long as its only used where it won't have too much effect on their ability to retain power (e.g., school boards or city councils). They don't want it in state level (or higher) races because it might [GASP!] give a non-Old Party candidate a chance at actually doing something that they can't do; work for all of the people, not just the ones that think like they do.

But don't take my word for it; look for yourself. Just search "approval voting".