
Approval Voting Discussion Summary
Summarising a Radio show discussion about Approval Voting, subject of a Europeian referendum
Written by Vor
Edited by Kasa
On October 18, the EBC hosted a radio show on the topic of Approval Voting. This topic is currently at vote, open to the entire Europeian citizenry. After passing the Senate by a 3-2 vote, the rewrite of the Elections Act (which includes the introduction of Approval Voting) was sent to referendum by President UPC, rather than being rejected or signed into law.
While unfortunately this article is likely too late to help most people inform their vote (though we hope you listened to the Radio show!), we thought the discussion interesting enough to dissect in an article. It's not unlikely that the community revisits this topic in the future as we continue to experiment and seek ways to improve the political system. We hope that this article will help in informing current and future perspectives on the issue, through the eyes and vision of those smart minds who contributed to this Radio show.
Introducing those minds:
@Lloenflys is a long-tenured Senator. Senate connoisseurs will know him as more sceptical on Approval Voting (AV), and that mostly held true during the conversation as well.
@SkyGreen is our current Attorney General and former Senator, passionate enough to join our conversation at 2 AM his time to give his insights on the proposed change, which proved valuable during the discussion.
@Rand is a tenured legislator and author of the Elections Act rewrite, and a supporter of AV, although not fervently so, according to himself. More on that to follow!
@HEM is the founder of our region and our current People's Assembly Chair. He made waves in the community recently through several proposals and discussions on Executive and Legislative reform.
We decided to structure this summary by the themes we thought important to discuss. We identified those themes by seeing what was part of the recent citizen debate as well as what arguments the discussion most prominently featured. We also addressed some questions posed specifically by citizens upon request before the show.
Competitiveness
In the conversation, this is the first topic that was raised: how would Approval Voting affect (Senate) election competitiveness?
Most of the panel agreed to some extent that competition in our region will or might be reduced. Lloen expressed that a part of him likes the "simplicity and elegance" of having to earn a majority vote by citizens to make it into the Senate, but saying that he dislikes more the effect it would have on election competitiveness. He echoed PhDre's expressed sentiment, which is that "Candidates are not running against each other in a General Election - they are running to gain 50+1 under this proposal," and Lloen thereby argued it would be moving us away from the "traditional" competitive nature of our elections. He emphasised that it is a "very different election" when candidates are no longer competing for the scarce resource that is Senate seats, since Approval Voting does not put any upper limit on that beyond viable candidates (candidates earning a majority vote).
Rand sees elements of competition for the sake of competition in our current system, and while he does not describe himself as an ardent supporter necessarily of AV, he did say that he's an ardent supporter of experimentation: "the risk with settling into our current ways is always complacency and eventually irrelevance; not to get too dramatic." He expressed that our current limitation on votes is "artificial," and that removing that restraint would give our voters more choice, aligning better with voter preference. Later in the conversation, he mentioned that the constraint is to some extent "a measure of regional activity and interest in the Senate, because the more people run, the more options for Senate size we have and the bigger a Senate we tend to get. So, it's not a completely bad mechanism."
SkyGreen concurred with the notion that AV will reduce competitiveness, but sees potential when he casts his gaze forwards to how it may affect voter behaviour in the future. He noted that, should voters understand the proposal, they might choose to withhold some of their votes to limit Senate size to their preference, especially after an election producing a undesirably large Senate with the changes, thereby reintroducing a similar competitive aspect as we have currently. He adds later that "guaranteed losers are not necessarily an issue," noting that it's not fully arbitrary since the restriction was put in place following our (representative) democratic process, and that he does think there is value in the competitiveness it introduces, saying that "we love our elections and we do like them to be competitive."
HEM noted that he somewhat agrees with PhDre's sentiment, but opined that we have little competitiveness as it is, pointing out that it's rare for candidates to address each other in their campaigns. He further noted that he doesn't think that having guaranteed losers in an election necessarily makes for a competitive one. The last point by HEM introduced a topic that has direct implications on competitiveness, but still is often treated as a separate subject of importance in the region, which is why we're giving it its own section in the summary.
Newcomer Opportunity
HEM said that he sees a possibility that AV "[invigorates] the public discussion and public energy around Senate elections," by expanding the chances for people to be elected alongside long-time popular members without fearing exclusion by limitation of Senate seats so long as they "hustle" for it. This could then lead to more people, ideas, and excitement being introduced to Senate elections.
HEM's suggestion found some concurrence with the panel. Lloenflys notes that it introduces a framing that he hadn't considered before, and while it does not seem to change his mind on the issue of competitiveness, he does agree it offers more opportunities for newcomers to make their move if they work hard enough.
SkyGreen introduced a counterpoint, which is that voter behaviour might change with the knowledge that there's more chance for newcomers and less popular candidates to make it into the Senate, increasing the risk with votes made mostly to encourage newer members rather than directly lead to their election: "I will be personally exercising more restraint in that regard [should AV be introduced]." He also noted that there's "something's positive in having to learn from your mistakes and having to get up and continue," referring back to his personal experience in having run for Senate unsuccessfully before making it in, further saying that "I think it's good that I didn't get elected earlier, before I could fully comprehend the issues in the Senate."
Choosing Candidates vs. Building the Senate
Rand raised a point on the overall purpose of our elections and political system, especially as it pertains to the current (at the time of writing) scarcity of seats and votes. "Do we want a Senate where anyone who puts in the work can have a voice, or do we want a Senate where it's artificially constrained by the number of people that run?"
HEM picked up on that train of thought later, asking: "What is the philosophy of how many [Senate] seats we should have? Is it about some greater consideration of the region and of people making a gut call about what the most efficient number of seats is, or is it about the candidates, and should it be about: 'is this person worthy of being a Senator, yes or no? [In the sense of election considerations], is it a term where there're tons of people running and there are a lot of big ideas for which we want a lot of places at the table to discuss the things at a high level, so we're gonna vote for a bigger Senate? Or is it a term where there are few pieces of legislation before the Senate, they're a little more technical and there's some details we just need to get right; maybe we want a smaller Senate. [With the current system], we have responsiveness to that. We're giving that up; with AV we're saying it's about the candidates and their worthiness and not about the region and the institution. I don't think it's just about the candidates and electoral mandate. Each term we get to build the Senate: what is it gonna look like, how many seats are there going to be? For me, that's the big thing I'm chewing on right now."
Rand responds positively to HEM's point, emphasising that his main problem with the current setup remains the "artificial" scarcity of votes, and that that ties into HEM's point in the sense of providing voters with the tools they need to construct the most appropriate Senate for the coming term. He proposes removing that constraint if we're not going for AV, since the current setup restricts the freedom for voters to construct, for example, a seven seat Senate from seven candidates running, should they wish to do so.
Rollback and Performance Indicators
Another relevant question that came up in conversation is: if we want to experiment with AV, what results would grant a sufficient argument to roll it back?
"If we implement this and we see all of the candidates engaging in robust GOTV and people putting their best foot forward on the campaign trail [...] if I saw that, then I would say 'ok, I think Approval Voting has succeeded,'" HEM said. On the other hand, if election activity and engagement were to stay the same or go down, he'd regard it as a failed experiment. He echoed some of what Rand said earlier: that we ought to avoid complacency or staying still, saying: "I don't have any other ideas [besides AV] for the Senate, and that makes me want to give this a shot." He further noted that he would not be surprised if it was implemented and then, after facing "mixed to negative" public reception, be discarded later.
SkyGreen concurred with that last point, saying that "there's a possibility that in the first election after introducing AV we get an 8 person Senate and everyone says we should repeal AV immediately."
HEM later emphasised the prospects of AV working, with the best case or "dream scenario" being where the activity it inspires "opens the eyes, hearts, and minds of people" by motivating them to engage in broad outreach and high-quality platforming. He admits that prospect might be "over the top" but would like to see something in that direction to regard AV as a success, otherwise seeing it as a failure.
Lloenflys sees it differently, saying "I want to try and muck up HEM's dream scenario," further adding that he sees two ways for AV to fail, one of which "involves HEM's dream scenario, only turning into a nightmare." Lloen pointed out that the possibility that Europeians are especially responsive to GOTVing, and that if AV indeed inspires more of that then "if everybody really GOTVs, everybody gets elected, every time," further saying: "that starts off as a dream scenario, as HEM is proposing, and I agree that'd be great, until it's not great. Then it's just: if you run, you win."
In concurrence, SkyGreen recounted a personal experience of GOTVing someone who was not involved in the politics of our region, and simply gained citizenship to enjoy Gameside benefits. The person told him they just voted for whoever reached out to them first, which SkyGreen uses in part to illustrate the point Lloen was making.
Finally, jumping to a different part in the conversation now, but on the same topic: HEM further underlined sentiment that PhDre has expressed, which is that there's a risk of AV "dulling the competitive nature of our political process." SkyGreen opined that in cases of AV doing that, people would likely move to repeal AV, and that the problem would be cut short that way. Lloenflys jumped in there to introduce a potential challenge to that, saying that "it can be difficult once you implement something to get rid of it if it's hard to convince marginally attentive people that there's a problem. It can be one of those things where it's not really working, but the only people who are really gonna notice that it's not working are those who are heavily invested."
Please note that this article is a summary! The full conversation was one hour and forty minutes in length, and features further elaboration by our panelists as well as additional points and arguments, featuring but not limited to: the change for the sake of change argument, a point from Lloenflys about AV "artificially" getting people to majority approval through run-offs, a proposed addendum/edit to AV by Lloenflys, a conversation about the Guilds proposal, addressing arguments and comments from PhDre, and a bunch of historical context by HEM that puts the issue of Senate seats further into Europeian perspective. Check out the EBC Radio show on our Spotify to hear about that and more! Please comment down below your thoughts and/or feedback if you have any! Thank you!