2025: North Dakota banned Approval (and RCV)
-
https://apnews.com/article/fargo-north-dakota-voting-democracy-bdda17efb891a5f910423394d554c41e
Status quo arguments need to be dismantled.
For example, the argument by Rep. Koppelman (R) is that approval voting produces “vanilla” winners. As in, he argues that polarizing or more ideologically extreme candidates (his word was “principled”) are preferable. To whom? And by what measure? Laid bare: therefore, cities should not even be allowed to vote using anything other than (ostensibly?) a polarizing system like choose-one.
This is not a neutral administrative argument. It is a value judgment imposed upon the voters of Fargo by their state lawmakers, despite Fargo voters having adopted approval voting by ballot initiative, and despite that voluntary change having no impact whatsoever on any other districts.
Taken seriously, this argument treats broad voter acceptability as a defect rather than a democratic virtue. But suppose even this were true—still, approval voting does not prevent voters from approving a polarizing candidate. What it prevents is a polarizing factional candidate winning merely because the rest of the electorate is split among more broadly acceptable alternatives.
Apparently, some supporters of the ban even stated that approval voting was “confusing.” This cannot be taken as a serious objection in context: the basic instruction is simply to vote for every candidate one approves of, and the count is simple addition.
The remaining argument is state uniformity. Gov. Armstrong (R) later stated, arguing against approval voting in Fargo:
- “Now more than ever, we need a consistent, efficient and easy-to-understand voter experience across our entire state to maintain trust in our election system.”
This does not actually show approval voting is inefficient or hard to understand. Approval voting is counted by simple addition, and its basic instruction is straightforward. The only real consistency argument is statewide uniformity, which is at best an insufficient justification when the local variation is voter-approved and affects no other jurisdiction.
The stated concerns for voter experience and trust are especially hollow, as they were used to nullify a voting system Fargo voters adopted for themselves.
These arguments are not neutral logical objections. They are contemptible rationalizations for state preemption: “uniformity” used to nullify local democracy, “confusion” asserted against one of the simplest possible voting rules, and “principled candidates” used as a euphemism for protecting factional advantage. State representatives should not be able to unjustly override a voter-approved local election system while disguising factional preferences as neutral administrative concerns.