Approval Voting Legislation

The primary legislative goal of Americans for Approval Voting is the mandated enactment of Approval Voting for single winner elections. There have been a handful of efforts to make this happen over the last 20 years, but none of them involved serious efforts at organizing significant support of the voters. Of course we intend to change all that.

Legislative History

Approval Voting bills were put forward in three states in the 1980's: New York, New Hampshire and North Dakota. The North Dakota bill actually passed in the Senate, but did not pass in the House and so it was never enacted. The other bills did not fare as well.

Current Opportunities

As the deficiencies of the plurality voting system become ever more apparent, the call for alternative voting systems has strengthened. Now there are several different possible approaches to getting Approval Voting enacted in public elections. In fact the approach used in the 1980's (direct enactment by state legislatures) is probably the least likely to work right away since the lack of a significant track record for Approval Voting is a considerable hurdle to overcome for early adopters. Therefore Approval Voting supporters are working on other ways to get Approval Voting used in smaller elections so that a track record is established.