Approval Voting
A method for optimal group decision-making
Approval voting is at the heart of Decisive Team. In this blog post, we will explore what approval voting is, why it is worth paying attention to, and how it enables teams to make wise decisions fast.
TL;DR: Approval voting maximizes group satisfaction (rather than majority rule) while simultaneously minimizing coordination costs (which are usually involved whenever tradeoffs are required), allowing teams to make optimal decisions quickly.
What is Approval Voting?
Approval voting is usually discussed in the context of political elections, but it can be defined more broadly as a group decision-making method that allows voters to choose multiple options instead of just one.
Approval voting lets each voter indicate support for one or more candidates. Final tallies show how many votes each candidate received, and the winner is the candidate with the most support.
This voting method can be generalized to any decision between multiple options, not just political elections.
How Neurons Vote
Perhaps one of the most compelling reasons to take note of approval voting is that approval voting appears to be implicitly used by neurons in the human brain to perform cognition.
According to The Thousand Brains Theory of Intelligence, the human brain consists of a multitude of modules that process information independently and then compile their outputs into unified perceptions through a kind of voting process that is indistinguishable from approval voting.
In other words, approval voting is the mechanism that neurons use to make decisions.
Our hypothesis at Decisive Team is that this fundamental mechanism of intelligence is scale-free, meaning it works as well for groups of people as it does for groups of neurons.
Optimizing for Group Satisfaction
Most voting methods in widespread use today (such as plurality voting used in most elections, or rank-choice voting which has become popular in recent years) may seem similar to approval voting, but there are subtle differences that make those methods sub-optimal for decision-making.
Whereas most voting methods optimize for majority rule (i.e. biggest sub-group wins), approval voting optimizes for overall group satisfaction.
For example, consider a group of three people voting on where to eat for lunch. Two members of the group are carnivores who always eat meat, and one is a vegan who never eats meat.
The three restaurants they are considering are:
a BBQ place that has no vegan options (the carnivores' first choice)
a vegan diner that has no meat options (the vegan's first choice)
a sandwich shop that has both meat and vegan options (everyone's second choice).
The common sense decision would be to go to the restaurant that has options for everyone: the sandwich shop. And indeed that's exactly what approval voting converges on.
But most other voting methods (including rank-choice voting) surprisingly converge on the BBQ place because the carnivores are a majority, creating a rivalrous dynamic between these sub-groups. This failure mode is often referred to as the “tyranny of the majority.”
Approval voting avoids this pitfall by optimizing for overall group satisfaction rather than majority rule.
Making Wise Tradeoffs
The word “decide” has etymological roots that mean something like “to cut off” or “to kill the alternative.” By their nature, decisions inherently involve tradeoffs. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. By choosing one option, you lose the other.
By necessity, making wise decisions means making wise tradeoffs.
One common objection to approval voting is that it does not capture the order of each voter’s preferences the same way that a method like rank-choice voting does. With approval voting, a voter’s first choice receives the same weight as their second choice, which initially feels wrong.
At first glance, this seems like a flaw of approval voting. But if you look closer, you will see that it is actually approval voting’s greatest strength because it solves the “tyranny of the majority” problem. How can this be? The answer follows from the necessity of tradeoffs.
The counterintuitive insight is this: by omitting information about the weightings of their preferences, voters are actually adding information about which tradeoffs they are willing to make.
The counterintuitiveness of this fact is similar to that of the Monty Hall problem. In both cases, relevant information is added via implicit omission rather than explicit inclusion.
Recall the example above with the two carnivores and one vegan deciding where to eat for lunch, ultimately converging on the sandwich shop that has meal options for everyone. Notice that, in this example, nobody gets their first choice. Nobody. Everyone has to make a tradeoff. And it is precisely because everyone makes a tradeoff that everyone gets an outcome they find acceptable.
So how does a group coordinate to make such tradeoffs? Getting that level of buy-in from everyone in the group must require a lot of back-and-forth negotiation, right? This is the beauty of approval voting: no coordination is necessary. Each voter makes their tradeoffs upfront at the time of voting. They do this by expressing their preferences strictly in terms of approval or disapproval rather than by giving extra weight to their favorites.
What this means is that, in addition to giving voters a say in which options to choose, approval voting gives voters a say in how to navigate the unavoidable constraints that are inherent to the decision. This is how approval voting converges on the wisest option and avoids the “tyranny of the majority.”
You can’t please everyone all the time, but approval voting ensures that you always get as close as possible, given the constraints of the situation.
The Bigger Picture
Decisive Team uses a three step decision-making process:
Ask a question.
Gather options.
Make a decision.
Steps 1 and 2 are arguably the most dynamic and creative. Teams usually build up valuable momentum during these steps. Lots of brainstorming and creative problem-solving happening in these steps.
Step 3 on the other hand often involves a bit more friction, especially for larger teams. Lots of communication overhead and coordination costs. This friction can destroy the momentum gained in steps 1 and 2 and cause a lot of frustration, which is why approval voting is so valuable for team collaboration. Approval voting keeps the momentum going.
By maximizing group satisfaction while simultaneously minimizing coordination costs, approval voting unblocks teams so they can move fast.
Decisive Team is a group decision-making platform that uses approval voting to empower teams like yours. Subscribe to our newsletter to be notified when you can sign up.