The spoiler effect
Spoiler candidates play an enormous role in most US elections. It has always been obvious that this irony crushes our spirit while erasing our progress. And every year strategists concoct new ways to make it worse.
About Approval Voting
Approval Voting means you can vote for as many candidates as you like. But, there's no ranking: each vote is simply yes or no. This system can produce powerful results, and is simple enough that polls can play an important role (saving voters time). But people love ranking; it feels very natural to say who is your favorite. This is why I created Expressive Voting.
The problems
The current ballot trains us to treat elections as a two-person fight.
Dominance of traditional parties
There are a few thousand people who are still proud to be a Democrat or a Republican. Hundreds of millions of Americans are VERY proud NOT TO BE the other one. But even when "the right side" wins, they often can't solve problems.
Cynical governance
In a one-vote election, a candidate can never zero in on exactly why you voted for them. They spend their energy making sure to stay in power, in case they eventually figure it out. The best way to do this is to keep people distracted by obnoxious sound-bites, oversimplifying painful (and often tragic) topics.
The mechanism
Approval voting is almost embarrassingly simple.
You mark every candidate you approve. The candidate with the most approvals wins. There is no ranking to complete, and no runoff math the voter has to simulate in their head.
The important consequence is what disappears. You no longer have to desert a liked candidate to stop a disliked one. Similar candidates can share support instead of destroying each other. A vote for the person you actually want is no longer a gift to the person you fear.
What that unlocks
If spoilers stop dominating, other things become possible.
Shared support stays visible
Candidates who do not win can still show that a large public would have accepted them. That popularity is currently hidden by the spoiler effect. Exposing it could strengthen the role those people play on the political team that follows the election.
Parties need not pick only one
It is not necessary for a party to nominate a single candidate, and it is not necessary for a candidate to belong wholly to a single party. Endorsements can become a spectrum rather than a coronation.
Room for overlapping goals
If officials are less trapped in a two-faction death struggle, their judgment in office can be less cynical. The work can tilt toward problems on which almost everyone can agree, instead of toward the next culture-war loyalty test.
The mountain
Ascent adds ratings and a baseline so approval can be more than a checkbox.
Classic approval voting is a yes or no on each name. That is already a large improvement on plurality. Ascent goes one step further: you rate each candidate from 0 to 500, then set a baseline. Everyone above the line receives your approval. The mountain is that picture — a landscape of preference, and a threshold you control.
The point of this application is not to replace a statute tomorrow. It is to let voters, researchers, and officials try the idea with mock elections and visible data, so the argument can be examined instead of merely asserted.
This is a working thesis, not a finished proof.
The rest of Ascent exists so this case can be inspected: ratings, baselines, offices, and policy claims in one place. If the ballot change is as consequential as it looks, it should be possible to watch the difference rather than take it on faith.