Definition of Approval Voting

Approve as many of as few candidates as you wish (by marking their names on the ballot, in some specified manner) and the candidate approved by the most voters wins.

How to Vote in Approval Voting Systems

Approval is much better than most advocates of other voting systems think it is. It’s perfectly matched to the situation in our official public political elections. Approval rates candidates into just two categories: approved and not-approved.

Advocates of other voting systems say Approval Voting isn’t expressive enough. But the candidates in our official elections are primarily and most-importantly in two categories too. Of course they’re in a very wide range of desirability, and a few are very much closer to you, and more to your liking.

They’re the first or top category, which I’ll call your ” best top-set “. The second or bottom category consists of the other candidates you didn’t approve of. Your best top-set are the very best, the ones you really like and fully trust.

What is Your Operational Top Set?

Because there’s a variety of candidates at every region of the political spectrum, then surely, for anyone, there exists a set of candidates such that, for that person, electing from that set is more important than the matter of which member of the set is elected. (And it is also more important than the matter of which candidate outside the set wins, if that happens).

I call this group the voter’s “operational top-set”as opposed to when I say “top-set”. I suggest that your operational top-set should consist of your “best top-set” who are the very best, closest to you, whom you really like and fully trust. So, Approval Voting’s two categories are a perfect match for those two important candidate-categories: the top-set and the bottom-set.

Approval asks the right question. In Approval, approve everyone in your top-set, and no one else. You don’t have to vote by predictive information. You can vote for what you really like and want instead.

Yes, there are many proposed Approval Voting strategies, many based on guesses about predictive information. But, for one thing, there isn’t really any reliable predictive information because our mass media, including NPR, are thoroughly dishonest and have an agenda – that of their owners. And, in keeping with that agenda, the media’s predictive “information” is always dismally pessimistic.

So, if you were to approve down to the best you think you can get and you’ve been convinced to expect something really bad – then you’re more likely to approve down to some pessimistically, dismally abhorrent compromise like Hillary Clinton.

So, disregard guesses, estimates, media advice, pundit-talk and other supposed predictive “information” regarding the best you can get. With an Approval Voting system, you can just approve your top-set. Voting should be hopeful and optimistic, not dismal and resigned.

Give the other voters credit for some good judgement and self-interest. In Approval Voting, one of the best can win. Support for at least one candidate in your top-set will likely be sizable, even crossing our country’s traditional political party lines.

The above is all you need to know about voting in Approval. I recommend Approval as the best voting-system.

How to Vote in Our Current Elections

By the way: How to vote in our current elections, like the one in November? Don’t.

With our elections’ unverifiable count-results, the elections are illegitimate. Look at the Harpers’ articles right after both of George W. Bush’s elections. The was mountains of count-fraud evidence in Florida and elsewhere.

So, instead of participating in and thereby supporting and endorsing something illegitimate, your only effective and appropriate vote is to boycott the illegitimate election. If we ever get democracy, it will be by demanding verifiable vote-counting in big pro-democracy demonstrations all across the country.