It was hard to find a mandate in the results from last June's Fargo City Commission election. The winners, Tony Grindberg and John Strand, won their seats with just 16 and 15 percent of the vote, respectively.

If two members of the commission together received at most 31 percent of the vote, how can it be said with confidence that they have derived true consent from those they will govern?

Enter "approval voting," a method being considered by the Election and City Governance Task Force ("Fargo task force recommends changing voting system, increasing number of city commissioners," Jan. 6), that could solve that issue without unduly burdening voters or the election apparatus.

Rather than limiting voting to one (or in this case, two) candidate, approval voting allows voters to vote for each candidate on a lineup, giving a thumbs up or a thumbs down to each. You could approve of any combination of candidates, or just one.

If you were strongly against one candidate but were ambivalent about the rest, your vote could reflect that. If you really only believed in one candidate, your vote could reflect that, too. In the end, the most-approved candidate(s) wins.

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Picking a winner is the point of an election, but approval voting goes one step further by eliminating split-vote effects. If you dislike candidate A, but like both candidate B and C, you simply vote your approval rather than having to pick B or C, which would split the vote and hand it to A.

The result isn't a simple tally of votes, but a better barometer of the public will. To use Fargo's case as a hypothetical, it's easy to see Strand and Grindberg each receiving upwards of 40 percent approval from voters under an approval voting system, a number that more accurately reflects the proportion of power they would derive from the electorate.

Further, approval voting would require little more than a change of wording on ballots, and public outreach to get voters on board. That gives it a distinct advantage over confusing and expensive runoff voting systems.

Grindberg and Strand have long track records with constituents in the city. Few would question their commitment to Fargo. It's a good thing their fellow candidates accepted the results gracefully. But as Fargo grows and its political offices become more hotly contested, it's not unthinkable to imagine a scenario where this result could descend into questions of legitimacy. Approval voting could prevent such a result.

It's too early in the task force's deliberations for an endorsement of approval voting or any other alternative under consideration. But approval voting is a thoughtful option that should not be dismissed.





Editorials represent the opinion of Forum management and the newspaper's Editorial Board.