Approval voting

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Approval voting is an electoral system in which voters may vote for any number of candidates they choose. The candidate receiving the most votes wins. Approval voting may be used in single-winner systems and multi-winner systems.

As of April 2025, one U.S. city, St. Louis, Missouri, had implemented approval voting. Fargo, North Dakota used approval voting from 2020-2024.

Use

This section provides information on jurisdictions that had implemented approval voting as of April 2025.

St. Louis, Missouri

In November 2020, St. Louis voters approved Proposition D, 68.15% to 31.85%. The measure implemented approval voting in local primary elections beginning in 2021.

Fargo, North Dakota

Voters in Fargo approved Measure 1 in November 2018, 63.5% to 36.5%. The measure implemented approval voting in local elections beginning in 2020. The city first used approval voting for a mayoral election in 2022.

On April 15, 2025, Governor Kelly Armstrong (R) signed HB 1297 into law, banning the use of RCV and approval voting. The law said, "Approval voting or ranked-choice voting may not be used in an election held within this state to elect or nominate a candidate to any local, state, or federal elective office. ... An ordinance enacted or adopted by a county, city, or other political subdivision, including an ordinance enacted or adopted under a home rule charter, which conflicts with this section is void. " No jurisdiction in the state used RCV at the time the bill became law.

In a statement, Gov. Armstrong said, "Now more than ever, we need a consistent, efficient and easy-to-understand voter experience across our entire state to maintain trust in our election system." The mayor of Fargo, Tim Mahoney, said, "The people of Fargo liked approval voting. It worked for us, but we accept the legislative body. We accept the decision they made.”

What approval voting looks like

See also: Mayoral election in St. Louis, Missouri, 2025 (March 4 top-two primary)

This section shows how approval voting unfolded in St. Louis' top-two mayoral primary election on March 4, 2025.

In the mayoral primary, 34,982 people voted and cast 48,908 total votes—an average of 1.4 votes per ballot.

• Cara Spencer was selected on 23,826 ballots and finished first in the primary. This means that she was picked on 68.1% of ballots.
• Incumbent Tishaura Jones was selected on 11,612 ballots, coming in second. This means that 33.2% of voters that cast a ballot in the election approved Jones on their ballot.

Sample ballot

This sample ballot came from the city's website.

Results

The election results PDF below came from the city's website.

Arguments for and against approval voting

Support

The Center for Election Science—a nonprofit that advocates for the implementation of approval voting—wrote that the following are advantages of approval voting:

“

The outcomes are more representative and reflect voter values. The candidate with the broadest support across the electorate wins. Candidates dividing the electorate is not a viable strategy in approval voting. It makes every voter more powerful since they have more options. This forces candidates to engage with voters, not ignore them. Candidates who build coalitions and consensus do better in approval voting. Being hyper partisan is a bad strategy to win an approval voting election. Voters can support candidates who may not be their first choice but are still acceptable to them. This helps them maximize the chances of getting a positive outcome. It eliminates vote-splitting as an issue, which means no candidate can ever be a “spoiler.” It can run on our current machines, which makes it very inexpensive and easy to pick up for communities and administrators.

”

Tishaura Jones, who won the 2021 mayoral election in St. Louis and was the city's treasurer at the time of the Proposition D vote, said the following:

“

Ultimately, Proposition D empowers St. Louis voters with more choices and ensures that the next mayor has to win the support of the majority of voters.

”

Opposition

Rob Richie, president of FairVote—an organization that advocates for the implementation of ranked-choice voting—wrote in 2016:

“

There are uses of approval voting that can make sense -- like when a group of people deciding on what movie to watch. While mathematicians can like this system and its alleged likelihood of electing a consensus winner, my colleagues and I are highly skeptical of its use in candidate elections. Two factors stand out: Viability and the issue of majority rule: If voters truly are free with their approvals in an approval voting election, it’s quite possible two or more candidates could earn more than half the vote. Indeed, it’s possible that a candidate whom well over half of voters see as a top choice could lose to someone who nobody sees as their top choice. Approval voting advocates defend such outcomes as fair, but it remains to be seen what voters would say. Workability in the real world: In approval voting elections, you can’t indicate support for more than one candidate without support for a lesser choice potentially causing the defeat of your first choice. This transparent dilemma for voters trying to cast a smart vote has immediate consequences. Because most voters as a result of this problem will refrain from approving of more than one candidate, the system in practice ends up looking far more like a plurality voting election system than a majority system.

”

The African American Aldermanic Caucus wrote of St. Louis' Proposition D:

“

Proposition D disenfranchises voters, because ballots that do not include the two ultimate finalists are cast aside to manufacture a faux majority for the winner. Under Proposition D, you never really know who will be running against whom in the final vote count with ranked choice. It is all a numbers gimmick.

”

See also

• Electoral system
• Single-winner system
• Multi-winner system

External links

• The Center for Election Science
• ACE: The Electoral Knowledge Network
• FairVote

Footnotes

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