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“Voters are sick of the 2-party system. A new poll shows they’re open to big changes”
(electionlawblog.org)
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this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2026
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politics
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Few people want B over their extreme I think. They want their lesser desired B vote to run off to A. Approval disproportionately advantages the middle, least desired by all parties.
Well first, the middle is where it should be pushed if representational goverment is the goal. They should represent the most people. Not the most popular minority group on election day. But also, it can work in favor of the the more extreme candidate too when the electorate feels like the more central, safer option has the better chance and vote accordingly.
Example, the Socialist candidate is charismatic, popular, and has good ideas, but the term socialism leaves people uneasy or unsure if they can get enough support. So under Ranked Choice, many hedge their bets and vote Democrat as their first rank and the socialist as their second. 12% for as first rank for the socialist, 55% for the democrat, and 33% for the republican. After runoff, the socialist is elminated and dems win. But with approval, 45% of the 55% of dems actually approve of the socialist. Now the socialist has 57% support. The results then entirely hinge on on how many socialist first voters also support dems.
In such a case, shouldn't they have voted 1 social 2 dem? Approval voting is fine, it allows cross aisle winners which are impossible now, but definitely has the chance of being a weak middle that's always walking on eggshells.
I personally wish we used issue voting: each candidate takes a test, then you take a test, and an algorithm matches your answers with the candidate to avoid a huge number of problems with media driven campaigns.
Not if you think socialist won't get enough/majority support. There is still a spoiler effect with ranked choice due to the elimination.
Imagine socialist gets 35% of first choice, dem gets 28%, republican gets 47%. Dem gets dropped but only 6% of the 28% also ranked the socialist. Then republican wins. If you are being strategic and expect that sort of outcome, even if you prefer the socialist, you still might ranke the dem as a 1 to prevent that occurrence and ensure that at least your second choice wins.
Approval is more idealistic, but it also incentivizes idealism and cooperation. If people don't approve of you or the job you have done, they don't vote for you when they have a better alternative. And people of different parties can campaign together, boost one another, cooperate to get stuff done, etc. and boost their own approval numbers in the process.
And I don't hate the issues based idea, so long as the tests, questions, and results are not controlled by any political bodies and have completely open processes for oversight. And there is also no reason that such compatibility and approval voting couldn't coexist either. In that case the approval would be based on the policy positions, not the individual. There are kinks to work out there. For example, if someone lies on the tests, or you agree with them on the majority of the policies, but have other valid reasons to not support them like a particularly important policy for you that they differ on, or they have a criminal history, etc.