The Good and the Tolerable

by Devin Ray Freeman

Posted November 10, 2006

Suppose a bold new way to vote called “Approval Voting” gets adopted in Podunk. The day comes to try it out, the names of six candidates for sheriff are printed on the ballot, and the directions say something like, “Vote for all those you deem tolerable.” Afterwards, results show that not even one in twenty voters chose more than one candidate for sheriff. There's grumbling at the town council. “What's the point of this Approval stuff? Everybody just votes for one anyhow.”

Voting for only one when given the option to vote for more is called “bullet voting.” If Approval is implemented, excessive bullet voting, if for no other reason than force of habit, may present a problem for Approval proponents. Naysayers will call for a return to Plurality Voting.

Under Approval, it's always a good idea to mark your favorite on your ballot. But how about your second favorite? Your third? Your next to least favorite? Decisions, decisions.

For some, having to know who all the candidates are might be too much the burden. For others, crossing party lines to supply alternative choices might feel drastic. Still, ignorance and straight ticket mentality aside, there are other reasons to bullet vote.

None can blame you if you do your homework and conclude, “There's only one on the ballot that's even OK.” But, even if there is no such lack of worthy candidates, the conscientious voters may be reluctant to vote for more than one under Approval on thinking that goes “If I put my second favorite on too, what if my second favorite beats my favorite because of it?”

Ask mathematicians that, and they will say “It will not matter how you vote, or even if you vote, except maybe in a little town like Podunk.” This, of course, is because the chances of you holding the deciding vote is nil. No wonder mathematicians conclude that voter behavior is irrational. Turnout should be highest for the tiniest of local elections where the chances of holding the deciding vote are better than nil. Instead, the voters come out for national elections.

Whatever it is that motivates people to go out and vote, giving the people the option to mark down more than one on the ballot for an Approval vote may result in them refusing to do just that, on the thinking that they are pitting their chosen candidates against each other.

This quandary can be attributed to the “binary” nature of Approval. Just as in ordinary voting (Plurality Voting), it's either thumbs up or thumbs down, but under Approval the line is meant to be drawn between all those tolerable and all those intolerable. This leaves us with no distinction between the good and the just OK.

The below is an Approval-like ranking (not binary) system of voting designed to encourage voters to choose more than one. I and Carl Milsted both thought up this method independently. I will here refer to it as “Ranked Approval.”

Ranked Approval

Vote

Write the names of those you prefer on the top line.

Write the names of any others you find tolerable on the bottom line.

Count

Step One - Tally up top-line preferred votes.

If one or more majorities are yielded, the one on the most ballots wins.

If no majority is yielded, go on to step two.

Step Two - Tally up the (bottom-line votes) tolerable onto the (top-line votes) preferred.

The one on the most ballots wins (irrespective of majority or none).

If asking the voter to write out the names of candidates seems like too much trouble, another style of ballot would ask for preferred candidates to be marked with a “1” and the just tolerable with a “2”.

I've presented the Freeman version for briefness. The Milsted version is fundamentally the same, differing only in that it allows for three levels of preference (preferred, right tolerable, just tolerable) or more.

Ranked Approval can be thought of as nothing more than consecutive Approval votes at once. The second Approval vote just asks that you lower your standard a bit in case no candidate is outstanding.

Note that like Plurality and straight Approval, Ranked Approval fails the majority criterion (described in the foregoing “A Glitch in Approval” essay), but the high standard for candidates in step one of the count renders the failing of the majority criterion all but meaningless.

Many methods of voting have been proposed that require that voters include all candidates in a ranked order. All are to be marked on your ballot, not just the good and the tolerable, but the bad and the ugly as well. This is done to force a majority outcome. It also leads to “donkey voting”(filling out the ballot at random just to be done with it, even not knowing who's who). One such method, called “Majority Choice,” is like Ranked Approval, but has a third line for candidates you find intolerable to be counted in a step three. It is thereby fundamentally different from Ranked Approval in form and practice.

Ranked Approval proponents (both of us, as of this writing) would rather spare the voters the burden of including the bad and the ugly. Let them put only the good and the tolerable on the ballot, thus leaving it to voters to decide how far they want to lower the bar stepwise.

Unlike Approval, Ranked Approval reflects an order of preference, so there's little reason to be reluctant to vote for your second favorite too while you're at it. For an added advantage, what with the distinction made between the good and the just OK, Ranked Approval can not be accused of only selecting the mediocre by those who consider this a serious failing of Approval.

Just how many voters in Podunk will get the urge to throw second and third choices for sheriff onto the ballot for good measure is speculative. Ranked Approval remains untried. The two Caucus members who dreamt it up think they will get that urge, and will be glad to be able to distinguish between the good and the tolerable, and may be gladder yet that they need not be bothered with the age-old dilemma of choosing between the badder and the uglier.

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