Approval voting is an election method in which each voter marks every candidate they find acceptable, and the candidate with the most approvals across all ballots wins. There is no ranking, no numbering, and no limit on how many names a voter can pick. A voter who marks one name and a voter who marks five each give a full, equal vote to every candidate they selected.
What Voters Actually Do on the Ballot
An approval ballot looks nearly identical to a standard one. The visible difference is in the instructions, which read something like “vote for all the candidates you approve of” instead of “vote for one.” Voters fill in ovals, check boxes, or tap a touchscreen for every candidate they would be comfortable seeing in office.
Each mark carries equal weight. Approving three candidates does not dilute any individual approval or split a voter’s influence among them. Voters can approve just one candidate if they have a strong preference, approve every name on the list, or, where a ballot allows it, approve none. Unmarked candidates simply receive nothing from that ballot.
How the Votes Are Counted
Counting is straightforward. Election officials add up every approval each candidate received. No transfers, no elimination rounds, no weighted math. The candidate with the highest total wins.
Because voters can approve more than one name, the total marks cast across all candidates will usually exceed the number of people who voted. If 10,000 voters each approve an average of two candidates, the combined total will be roughly 20,000. That is a normal feature of the method, not a counting error. Officials typically report each candidate’s total alongside the number of ballots cast, so voters can see both the raw count and the percentage of participating voters who approved each candidate.1U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Election Results, Canvass, and Certification
Standard voting equipment can handle this without new hardware. Federal Voluntary Voting System Guidelines allow contests in which a voter may choose up to a specified number of options; for approval voting, administrators set that maximum equal to the total number of candidates, so multiple marks are treated as legitimate rather than as overvotes.2U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Voluntary Voting System Guidelines Version 2.0 Jurisdictions still need to reprogram existing equipment for each contest that uses the method.
How It Compares to Ranked-Choice and Plurality Voting
Approval voting is most often compared to ranked-choice voting. The two systems work quite differently.
Under ranked-choice voting, voters order candidates by preference. If no candidate earns more than half of the first-choice votes, the last-place candidate is eliminated and their voters’ ballots transfer to whichever candidate those voters ranked next. This repeats until someone crosses the majority threshold. The winner always has the support of more than half of the remaining voters in the final round.
Approval voting skips all of that. The ballot is simpler and the count is simpler. The tradeoff is real: because every approval counts equally and there is no mechanism to narrow the field, the winner is not guaranteed to have majority support. A candidate could win with approvals from 35% of voters if the rest of the field is fragmented. That is the same weakness as traditional plurality voting.
Where approval voting does clearly improve on plurality is in crowded fields. Under “pick one” rules, similar candidates split their supporters’ votes and can all lose to a less popular candidate who faced no competition in their lane. Approval voting largely removes that spoiler effect, because voters can support multiple similar candidates without penalty.
Common Criticisms of the Method
The most frequent criticism is the “bullet voting” problem. A voter with a strong favorite may choose to approve only that one person, even when they find other candidates acceptable, because approving a rival could help defeat their top choice. If most voters behave this way, the election effectively degrades into a standard plurality contest. Averages from Fargo and St. Louis suggest voters did approve more than one candidate on average (1.8 and 1.6, respectively), but those figures also suggest many voters still approved just one.
A deeper concern is the lack of a majority requirement. The winner needs only the most approvals, not support from more than half of voters. Critics argue this can produce winners who are the “least objectionable” rather than the most genuinely supported. Ranked-choice voting addresses this through its elimination rounds, which is why advocates of that system often draw the comparison.
Approval voting also treats every approval as identical. A voter who enthusiastically supports a candidate and a voter who barely finds that candidate tolerable contribute the same weight. There is no way to signal intensity of preference. Some voting theorists see this as a feature that encourages consensus candidates; others see it as a flaw that strips useful information from the ballot.
Where Approval Voting Is Used in the United States
As of early 2026, St. Louis, Missouri, is the only U.S. city actively using approval voting for government elections.3Ballotpedia. Approval Voting
St. Louis adopted the method through Proposition D, which passed in November 2020. The implementing ordinance established a two-stage system: an open nonpartisan primary uses approval voting to narrow the field to the top two candidates, who then face off in a general election runoff. It applies to elections for mayor, comptroller, president of the Board of Aldermen, and aldermanic seats.4City of St. Louis. Ordinance 71410 – Proposition D (Open, Non-Partisan Elections) The first approval primary ran in March 2021 for the mayoral race, with four major candidates. Tishaura Jones won with 57% approval.
Fargo, North Dakota, used approval voting from 2020 through 2024 after voters passed Measure 1 in November 2018 with roughly 64% support.5Ballotpedia. Fargo, North Dakota, Measure 1, Approval Voting Initiative (November 2018) Its first approval election was held in June 2020 for City Commission seats. Voters approved an average of 1.8 candidates per ballot, and post-election surveys found that 69% felt they could support their favorite candidate without worrying about electability. Governor Kelly Armstrong later signed a bill banning both approval voting and ranked-choice voting statewide, and Fargo’s next election, scheduled for June 2026, will no longer use the method.
What It Takes for a City to Adopt Approval Voting
Adopting the method in a U.S. city typically requires amending the municipal charter through a voter-approved initiative or a city council action, depending on local rules. The critical legal prerequisite is home rule authority: the city must have enough self-governance power under state law to deviate from the default election procedures set by the state legislature. In North Dakota, state law grants home rule cities broad authority over “all matters pertaining to city elections,” which the attorney general confirmed was sufficient to support Fargo’s ordinance.6North Dakota Attorney General. Fargo’s Home Rule Charter and Ordinance Regarding its Approval Voting Election Procedure Supersede the Ballot Requirements of N.D.C.C. Section 16.1-06-04 for the Election of City Officials
Not every state offers that flexibility. Where election procedures are controlled entirely at the state level, cities may lack the legal power to adopt alternative voting methods without specific enabling legislation. And even where home rule authority exists, the adoption is only as durable as the state legislature allows it to be. Fargo had clear legal authority under its charter, confirmed by the attorney general, but the legislature ultimately passed a statewide ban that overrode the local decision. A charter amendment protects against local political reversals; it cannot prevent a state legislature from changing the rules.