Centerville’s city council has been asked to write a letter to legislators expressing support for approval voting, an electoral system in which voters can select any number of candidates instead of selecting just one. Voters mark “yes” or “no” for each candidate, rather than “yes” to only one; the candidate with the most “yes” votes, the highest approval rating, wins.

On May 21, Nate Allen, executive director of Utah Approves presented the concept to Mayor Clark Wilkinson and the city council. 

Utah Approves is working to get the legislature to support creation of a pilot program around this method similar to the pilot program that exists for ranked choice voting, Allen said.

“What this does is to make sure that candidates with a broad-based appeal win the election rather than people who only appeal to one single slice of the population,” Allen said. “Our current system, plurality voting, elects candidates with a passionate base of support. That doesn't mean that the passionate base of support candidate wouldn't win under an approval voting election. That broad-based appeal just means that you have to appeal to multiple slices of the population to best represent the entire population, rather than that large single slice which is oftentimes far less than the majority.”

Approval voting is more likely to show the true level of support for each candidate and to make voters feel more positive about the outcome, he said. “Exit polling results from St Louis show that people felt like it was in general a more positive environment for the voters that were participating in that election.” 

Because the ballots are so simple, they may be counted in the location where they are cast, he said. In addition to this, approval voting limits vote splitting and spoiled elections. It is cost effective particularly if there is no primary election since the ballot would stay the same size, it does not require new voting machines or software, Allen said.

Utah’s county clerks like this method because it produces an audit trail, Allen said. “We talked with [Weber County Clerk] Ricky Hatch, the president of the county clerks association, and he’s relayed that all [of them] are supportive.” 

Additionally county clerks are supportive of cities implementing approval voting if they want to try it, he said. “They don't need their whole county to opt in.”

“Approval voting is essentially as old as democracy itself,” Allen said. It has been used since ancient times in Greece and Venice, Italy and even for papal conclaves. In the U.S. it has been utilized by the cities of Fargo, ND and St. Louis, Miss.

While they did not make any commitment of support that evening, council members seemed intrigued by the idea of approval voting.

“I much prefer this method,” Councilmember Gina Hirst commented. “I think that it’s very straightforward, and it's common sense in the way that it's applied. I also like the idea that you could use it to eliminate a primary. That would save the city money.”

More information on approval voting may be found at www.utahapproves.org.