What is approval voting in simple terms?

Instead of picking one candidate, you mark every candidate you would be happy with, and whoever gets the most marks wins.

What are its advantages?

It reduces vote splitting between similar candidates and makes it easier for broadly acceptable candidates to win.

Approval Voting

🏛️ Politics & Public Administration By CampusDown Wiki Editorial Team Last updated October 27, 2026

Approval voting is a voting method in which voters, instead of choosing just one candidate, mark every candidate they find acceptable, and the candidate with the most approvals wins. Steven Brams and Peter Fishburn systematized it theoretically in a 1978 article. Because it is simple yet reduces vote splitting and tends to elect broadly supported candidates, it became a major topic in social choice theory and electoral reform debates.

Contents

1. Basic principles
2. Comparison with other methods
3. Use and assessments
4. FAQ
5. References

Basic principles

Brams and Fishburn (1978) analyzed a method in which voters choose a set of approved candidates and showed that with three candidates sincere expression of preferences is generally strategically rational as well. Under plurality rule, two similar candidates can split the vote and both lose, but approval voting reduces this problem because voters can approve both. Brams and Fishburn (1983) developed the analysis in book form.

Comparison with other methods

Fishburn and Brams (1981) argued that approval voting tends to elect the Condorcet winner, who beats every rival head-to-head, more reliably than runoff elections. Yet such a winner may not exist, as the Condorcet paradox shows, and as Arrow's impossibility theorem shows, no voting method satisfies every desirable condition. Approval voting still requires strategic judgment in deciding where to set the approval threshold (Cox, 1997).

Use and assessments

Brams and Fishburn (2005) reviewed how several professional societies adopted approval voting for officer elections and some later abandoned it, analyzing the gap between theory and practice. The handbook edited by Laslier and Sanver (2010) synthesizes experiments, field studies and theory. Adoption for local elections in some US cities has recently revived reform debates.

FAQ

What is approval voting in simple terms?: Instead of picking one candidate, you mark every candidate you would be happy with, and whoever gets the most marks wins.
What are its advantages?: It reduces vote splitting between similar candidates and makes it easier for broadly acceptable candidates to win.

Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26

References

Brams, S. J., & Fishburn, P. C. (1978). Approval voting. American Political Science Review, 72(3), 831–847. The founding analysis.
Brams, S. J., & Fishburn, P. C. (1983). Approval voting. Birkhäuser. The book-length treatment.
Fishburn, P. C., & Brams, S. J. (1981). Approval voting, Condorcet's principle, and runoff elections. Public Choice, 36(1), 89–114. Comparison with runoffs and Condorcet.
Brams, S. J., & Fishburn, P. C. (2005). Going from theory to practice: The mixed success of approval voting. Social Choice and Welfare, 25(2–3), 457–474. Approval voting in practice.
Laslier, J.-F., & Sanver, M. R. (2010). Introduction to the handbook on approval voting. In J.-F. Laslier & M. R. Sanver (Eds.), Handbook on approval voting (pp. 1–12). Springer. Overview of the research field.
Arrow, K. J. (1951). Social choice and individual values. Wiley. Social choice background.
Cox, G. W. (1997). Making votes count: Strategic coordination in the world's electoral systems. Cambridge University Press. Strategic coordination.

Reports and materials that use this theory (Korean)

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This article was last updated on October 27, 2026. It is based on widely recognized original works and textbooks; when citing it in a paper, please check the original sources listed in the references.