Approval Voting: a mechanism for rapid growth of local power, and for freedom for rural outstate regions from the heavy-handed rule of their state’s metropolitan area.
In past decades, and especially since the 2020 election, there have risen a handful of ‘soft session’ populist groups… mostly consisting of groups in rural states that want freedom from domination by their state’s metro area. These groups have organized and unified counties that wish to leave their respective states, and wish to merge with adjoining states that are free from metro-area rule.
Because the politicians of both major parties will be almost unanimous in opposition to the idea of splitting states, this issue will be nearly impossible to implement… unless a mechanism arises that can cause rapid spread of the state-splitting idea across wide swaths of the nation.
That mechanism is Approval Voting… an election system that allows Independent candidates to compete, on a level playing field, with candidates from both major parties. This is a system that could most easily emerge at the local level, and could spread to communities and counties across the nation. The spread will be slow for a brief period, but will explode when people view first-hand what the new system is capable of.
The most advantageous capability of Approval Voting is this: the voter does not fear “throwing away his vote” on an unelectable third-party candidate, because the voter can vote for multiple candidates, including the “safe” major-party candidate.
Therefore, a locally popular independent candidate is going to get lots of votes, and even a loss will cement his or her policies… and persona… into the minds of the local public… thereby enhancing that particular candidates chances of winning next years election. Furthermore, now that the new system’s capabilities are known, the next election will attract a large number of highly qualified independent candidates, and much funding of independent candidates.
Think about what that means… attracting a large number of highly qualified candidates. That means there will be at least one independent candidate who totally supports the main issue that is important to the local populace… just as last year’s candidate did… but this new candidate will be a motivational speaker who endears himself to audiences, has great organizational abilities, will be well-funded, and will be just as familiar with congressional activities as would be a major-party candidate.
An Independent candidate who can serve his public as well as the major-party candidate… with the added bonus of supporting the main social issue important to the local public.
This highly-qualified independent candidate would have an excellent chance of defeating the major-party candidate, and in doing so, revolutionizing Approval Voting across wide swathes of the country.
Even just one successfully-implemented Approval Voting election, occurring in some part of the country, may be enough to cause an explosion of such election reforms in the following years.
And, in like manner, there would also occur a cementing of the demands made by ‘soft secessionist’ advocates for changing the borders of certain states.
Such a thing would portend the end of two long-suffering centuries of having our candidates picked for us by elites. No more picking from the worst of two evils. And, those of us who wish to unite our God-fearing communities and counties with others of like mind, will have the final say about whether or not we can make such a move.
Note: the details of approval voting will be included in an upcoming post. For now, suffice it to say that the system is a multiple-choice system that allows one to give a full vote, or a fraction of a vote, to multiple candidates…thereby disposing of the fear of “throwing your vote away on an unelectable candidate”.
Note 2: do not confuse Approval Voting with the much-bally-hooed “Ranked-choice Voting”, which is an unwieldy, cumbersome device that protects incumbents and does nothing for independent candidates. Nearly all political scientists agree that Approval Voting (also called Range Voting) is the best form of multiple-choice voting, and is also better than the current system used in the United States.
More updates to this post coming soon.