Approval Voting is Simple

The widely used plurality voting system has only two things going for it: tradition and ease of use. Unlike other alternative voting systems designed to cure the ills of plurality voting, Approval Voting is also easy to understand and use. The directions on the ballot change a tiny bit and that is that. Furthermore the election winner is selected in a simple and unambiguous way: the most votes wins!

People do not seem to need any special instructions in order to use Approval Voting and they tend to vote intelligently without any special assistance when given an Approval ballot. Therefore re-education for Approval Voting will be easy and inexpensive. Furthermore, if some voters don't get it, they can simply vote in the same manner that they already feel comfortable with (one vote per race) and their vote is still perfectly legitimate.

One small change worth noting is that some public elections allow "straight party voting" where one ballot vote selects all of the candidates for the chosen political party. Straight party voting is somewhat ambiguous with Approval Voting and therefore it makes sense to dispense with it when Approval Voting is adopted. This is just as well since many voters find it quite confusing anyway.

There is no other alternative voting system that is as practical to adopt and use as Approval Voting. Fortunately Approval Voting is also one of the very best voting systems available for use in single winner elections.