In 2016 the Approval Voting Party ran Frank Atwood for President and Blake Huber for VP. They appeared on the ballot in Colorado.
In 2020 they have switched roles. Huber is the Presidential nominee and Atwood is the running-mate. Sort of a vice versa thing. Get it? "Vice" versa? My attempt at a political ticket joke. Sorry, couldn't resist.
Well, anyway.
In case you are wondering what the concept of Approval Voting is all about, on April 24 Mr. Huber sent me this nice summation in an email:
In a nutshell Approval Voting allows a voter to mark his ballot for more than one candidate with the candidate marked on the most ballots is the candidate that is elected. The voter can choose all the candidates she agrees with on issues or the ones that have the correct resume for the current election period instead of voting for only one candidate.
Currently each voter marks his ballot for only one candidate, often resulting in voting for the lesser of two evils, the voter also has to consider the concept of electability as a criteria for casting her single precious vote. This concept of vote for one and only one is an archaic concept and limits our choices.
Our efforts are designed to change the voting method to allow voters to honestly and sincerely select the candidates they support and to elect the candidate that has the broadest popular support.
I would like to thank Eric Bodenstab, VP nominee of the Unity Party of America, for helping me make contact with the Approval Voting Party. The following is my email interview with Blake Huber, Approval Voting Party 2016 VP and 2020 Presidential nominee--
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Q: From what I can ascertain, both of you have a history with the Libertarian Party in Colorado. Did that experience play a role in becoming activists for Approval Voting?
BH: I have been involved with alternative party politics most of my adult life. Those of us who associate with alternative political parties understand that electability is a wall that an alternative party candidate must scale in order to get noticed in the election. When I met Frank Atwood several years ago and was introduced to the concept of Approval Voting I realized that here was a voting method that would allow voters to support all the candidates they agree with or like in an election. Much the same as financial supporters can support multiple candidates, voters can actually mark their ballot for all the candidates they agree with. This simple change to our voting method allows the candidate with the broadest popular support to be elected. It does away with the concepts of electability, wasted votes, and voting for the lesser of two evils.
Q: I see there are Approval Voting groups in different parts of the United States, but you have decided to actually create a bonafide political party as a vehicle for change. How did that choice come about?
BH: It is extremely difficult to measure how many people agree with you on an issue like Approval Voting. One method is to create an initiative adopting Approval Voting for a particular type of election. We decided forming a political party would actually allow people to vote for the concept, generate interest in the concept, and give us a measure of support. When people are fed up with the lack of choice they currently have, again the lesser of two evils, we have found that people are willing to express their sincere choice at the ballot box by voting for an alternative party candidate who has a rational solution to the kind of negative campaigning and mess our current election method creates.
Q: Do you see yourselves as a single-issue party?
BH: Yes, this is the most important issue, fixing our antiquated voting method. Our current method does not allow the voter to express himself sincerely and honestly when selecting a candidate, she can't use her own criteria, she has to include electability as part of her candidate selection criteria. If we wonder why there’s a glass ceiling for candidates, we simply need to look at our current voting method. This year the New York Times endorsed two candidates, both women, who dropped out because they were not considered electable.
Q: Is Ranked Choice Voting an option worth promoting as well?
BH: Any change to our current voting system is preferable. Approval Voting is the method I prefer because it will work on any voting machine, anywhere in the country, and is very simple. You mark your ballot for all the candidates you like, everybody else does the same, the candidate that has the broadest popular support, who is marked on the most ballots, is the candidate that is elected. And we win, because we have elected the candidate with the broadest popular support.
Q: One critique of Approval Voting I found read, "Approval voting violates 'one person, one vote' and is unconstitutional." How do you respond to that?
BH: This is a great question, thanks for asking it. The term "one person one vote" refers to the weight of votes, not to how votes are expressed.
The U.S. Supreme Court made the "one person one vote" rule explicit in Reynolds v. Sims (377 U.S. 533). The rule stated that no vote should count more than any other so that it has unequal weight. This unequal weight would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. And it was Baker v. Carr (369 U.S. 186) that extended the Equal Protection Clause to districting issues. In Reynolds, the state of Alabama set up its districts so that they varied wildly in population. The districting was so bad that it gave some voters' ballots as much as 41 times more weight than others. Because the weights of the ballots were different between districts, that violated the "one person one vote" rule.
A common misconception is that approval voting gives more weight to voters who vote for more candidates. To see why this isn't the case, imagine a tied election between a liberal and two conservatives. Bob casts a vote for the liberal, while Alice casts an opposing vote for the two conservatives. After Bob and Alice have voted, the election is still tied. Bob and Alice have an opposite but equal effect on the election. Another way to think of it is that if you vote for all candidates, that has the same effect as not voting at all. The key here is that no voter has an unfair advantage. Effectively, every voter casts a "yes" or "no" vote for every candidate.
Finally, consider that voters are already allowed to vote for multiple candidates in "at large" races. For instance, a city council may simultaneously elect three representatives. Some voters may vote for three candidates, while others may vote for only one or two candidates.
Approval Voting is one person, one ballot.
Q: What are the demographics of your support base? What part of the political spectrum do you think they are coming from? Are other third parties supporting your efforts at least in spirit?
BH: Support for Approval Voting seems to come from people who are fed up with a lack of choice from our current voting system. These people are all ages, genders, backgrounds.
Currently among alternative parties the Unity Party and the New Whig Party have expressed support for Approval Voting. In some state organizations, the Libertarian party uses Approval Voting to elect its internal officers. Approval Voting is also used by the two major mathematical organizations in the country in their internal elections of officers. They get it, it's all about the math!
Q: Are you experiencing any backlash to your ideas, and from where?
BH: Yes, the backlash we have experienced comes from political operatives who want to control who a voter can vote for. They want to control the outcome by controlling what choices voters have. These same political operatives, that supported candidates who were elected as the least objectionable alternatives, don't want to find out who really does have the broadest popular support.
Q: It is pretty rare to see the same nominees switch the Presidential and Vice-Presidential slots between elections. Lawrence Holmes and Gloria La Riva of the Workers World Party did that in 1992. How is that working out for you two?
BH: We started the idea of promoting Approval Voting by running for office in 2016 and we hope that others will want to create organizations in their own communities to spread the word about a rational change to our voting system.
Q: Any life lessons from the 2016 campaign that you are applying to the 2020 effort?
BH: In 2016 our presidential/vice presidential ticket was on the ballot in only one state and we received a handful of votes. In 2018 our campaign for Secretary of State got almost 14,000 votes in a statewide contest. We found that the more attention we can bring to the concept the more people will join in. Our 2018 race for Secretary of State enabled us to get enough members to become a fully qualified party under Colorado law.
Q: What sort of national and support network exists for proponents of Approval Voting?
BH: Groups are starting all over the country in support of Approval Voting. Voters in Fargo, North Dakota, passed an initiative to make Fargo the first municipality in the nation to use Approval Voting in their local elections. Voters in St. Louis, Missouri, recently ran a successful campaign for Approval Voting to be used in their municipal elections.
A search on Facebook will show many statewide organizations that have cropped up in the last several years.
The Center For Election Science is a nationwide organization that is identifying and helping local efforts to have Approval Voting adopted for local races.
Q: How will you measure the success of your 2020 campaign?
BH: Just as with other campaigns, we will measure the success of this year's campaign based on the number of votes we get, the amount of media attention, and the number of local organizations that are created to promote Approval Voting.
Q: Where can interested voters contact you?
BH: Voters can contact me directly at BlakeHuber@gmail.com or by joining our Facebook group at ApprovalVotingParty.com
Q: Thank you very much for contributing to this project.
