Approval Voting in Large Electorates

The strategic analysis of voting rules has given some insight into the understanding of their properties. However, one can assert that these analyses are “too rich” in the sense that they show that a plethora of equilibria can arise under most voting rules. In particular, there is a controversy over Approval voting or

AV

, a voting rule which has been called “the electoral reform of the twentieth century.” This voting rule allows the voter to vote for as many candidates as he wishes and the candidate who gets the most votes wins the election. Its detractors claim that this kind of method enhances strategic voting when compared for instance to Plurality voting (henceforth

PV

), whereas its proponents consider that it has several advantages as far as strategic voting is concerned. For an extensive discussion on this controversy over

AV

, the reader can refer to Brams (2008) and Weber (1995).