Majority Judgment vs. Approval Voting

Majority judgment (MJ) and approval voting (AV) are compared in theory and practice. Criticisms of MJ and claims that AV is superior are refuted. The two primary criticisms have been that MJ is not “Condorcet consistent” and that it admits the “no-show paradox.” That MJ is not Condorcet consistent is a good property shared with AV: the domination paradox shows that majority rule may well err in an election between two. Whereas the no-show paradox is in theory possible with MJ, it is as a practical matter impossible. For those who believe that this extremely rare phenomenon is important, it is proven that MJ with three grades cannot admit the no-show paradox. In contrast, AV suffers from serious drawbacks because voters can only “tick” or “approve” candidates—at best, only Approve or Disapprove each candidate. With AV, voters cannot express their opinions adequately; experiments show that Approve is not the opposite of Disapprove, and although AV does not admit the no-show paradox, it admits the very closely allied no-show syndrome and “insensitivity.” Two are too few. Substantive debate must concern three or more grades.