No Spoiled Ballots

Anyone who was paying attention to the news out of Florida after election day during the 2000 election learned about the terms "undervote" and "overvote". An undervote is a ballot with no candidates selected and an overvote has more than one selected. In plurality voting these ballots are spoiled and discarded.

In Approval Voting there is no such spoilage since every possible combinations of votes (including no votes) is allowed. Furthermore, practically every possible combination has a useful meaning. For example, in a four way race you can:

• Vote for nobody meaning you dislike all of the candidates;
• Vote for one candidate indicating your only approved choice;
• Vote for two candidates that are both acceptable;
• Vote for three candidates meaning that you prefer all candidates other than one that you really don't like;
• Vote for all four candidates meaning that you think that all of the candidates are acceptable.

It turns out that you have 16 different possible voting combinations in a 4-way race which means that you have much more room for expressing your political viewpoint than you would in a plurality election.