Trump became the front runner for the GOP nomination by getting 30-35% of the vote in early primaries. His negatives even among Republicans consistently hover around 50%. And among all voters his negatives are nearly 66%. But Trump has been able to dominate the GOP field because of plurality voting. That is, the candidate with the highest number of votes, regardless of how small the overall percentage, prevails. Trump was helped by a large field of candidates and vote splitting among the more moderate contenders which is a direct result when you have plurality voting.

How did we got to a world where in December Lindsey Graham said that picking between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump was like picking between being shot or poisoned and today headlines Ted Cruz fundraisers? It’s partly because of our plurality voting system which allows candidates with loyal but minority support to dominate elections whichoften results in less satisfactory candidates being nominated.

So, Sen. Graham is left asking for the poison and hoping someone comes up with a cure before it ends up being fatal.

Yet the answer to the GOP’s current predicament could have been found online in 2013. Shortly after Mitt Romney’s loss, the Independent Voter Network website posted an article by Aaron Hamlin, the Executive Director for Election Science, explaining how approval voting could save the GOP. He’s looking like a goll darn genius right now.

What is approval voting? Here’s a short video

Approval voting is thought of by election scientists as one of the most accurate ways to elect the most satisfying and best candidate.

If approval voting had been used throughout the nominating process, Republicans could have voted their approval for all the moderate candidates in early primaries and with held their votes from both Trump and Cruz. Trump voters would have been unlikely to vote for other candidates, but voters who supported a moderate positioned candidate could have voted for- or approved of- candidates such as Christy, Kasich, Bush and Walker without splitting their votes.

In New Hamsphire where the results were 35% for Trump, 16% for Kasich, 12% for Cruz, 11% for Bush, 11% for Rubio, 7% for Christy 4% for Fiorina and 3% for Carson, with approval voting, you may have had something along the lines of: 45% approval for Kasich, 43% approval for Bush, 42% approval for Trump, 40% approval for Cruz, 37% approval for Rubio.

What a different world that would have made.

The GOP Convention Could find a consensus candidate.

It’s not too late to nominate a consensus candidate at the GOP convention, and approval voting is the key. Both to selecting the candidate, and avoiding a meltdown at the convention when Trump isn’t nominated.

If If GOP delegates want to nominate the strongest and most widely supported candidate they should write a convention rule that requires that after the first ballot all the subsequent ballots be done by the approval voting method.

With approval voting, you should see several consensus candidates emerge who are truly acceptable to a majority of delegates and GOP office holders. Suddenly Trump’s 45% is dwarfed by the 50% or 60% approval that a consensus candidates receives. This is important, because if Trump were denied the nomination after receiving the most votes in the primaries a convention vote where he came in third or fourth would justify nominating someone else. Particularly where you could argue that scientifically the approval voting method is superior at finding the best or most satisfactory candidate to a majority of Republicans.

Proof of Concept

If the GOP convention were to use approval voting at its convention and avoid a disastrous Trump nomination and nominate a candidate that has broad support and can compete in November, it would prove the concept of approval voting as a way to elect more widely acceptable candidates nationwide. While the radicals who now dominate the GOP may not “approve” of that moderation, GOP candidates may get rewarded by independent voters looking for alternatives to far left Democrats.

And, the other benefit of approval voting – which doens’t apply to a convention vote only but would if it applied to an entire primary season, is that it discourages negative campaigns. Since voters no longer have to vote for the lesser of two evils, in multi candidate races those who run a positive campaign tend to benefit when one candidate goes negative against another.

and who knows, it may just catch on.

Here’s a longer, and better, video on approval voting. About 10 minutes, but well worth it.