A bill to adopt approval voting has been filed in the N.H. House, and one of the co-sponsors is a member of the relevant committee. The bill would establish approval voting for all state offices and presidential primaries. Approval voting is an electoral system for single-winner elections that allows voters to cast not more than one vote for as many candidates as they like and selects the top vote-getter. Steven Brams and other political scientists have endorsed the system as an alternative to plurality rule (or “first-past-the-post”) because a) approval voting is more likely than plurality to select a Condorcet winner when there is one, b) approval voting tends to favor candidates with even temperament and broad ideological appeal, and c) approval voting is more likely than plurality to permit victories by independent and third-party candidates. (However, approval voting is much less likely to ensure representation for political minorities than is a multi-winner, proportional electoral system.) I see approval voting as a good option for inevitably single-winner elections like gubernatorial races and possibly also when it is desirable to keep districts very small and “close to home,” as the massive N.H. House of Representatives does. However, the N.H. Senate has highly artificial districts, and statewide party-list proportional representation seems like a more logical system for that body. Nevertheless, all efforts at bringing electoral reform to the fore of debate are to be welcomed.

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