Formal disapproval

Disapproval voting is any electoral system that allows many voters to express formal disapproval simultaneously, in a system where they all share some power. Unlike most electoral systems, it requires that only negative measures or choices be presented to the voter or representative. If used to select candidates for an office, or for continuation to a next round of voting or play, it is either single- or multi-winner, as everyone who is not disapproved of is in effect a winner, for that round.

A referendum or a recall election may be said to be minimal forms of disapproval voting. However, usually only one measure or candidate is presented to be disapproved of. True disapproval voting would require more than two choices or representatives, and would ask voters to disavow one or more.

It is usually functionally equivalent to a simple inverted form of another kind of voting: rather than voting "for" one votes "against" a list of candidates - usually one (as in first past the post voting), but if one can disapprove of as many as one chose, or rank them in order of desirability for exclusion, disapproval voting becomes functionally identical to approval voting and some ranked voting systems respectively.

However, the psychology of vetoing, protesting, excluding individuals or options, or removing an incumbent, triggers a very different cognitive bias and mode of risk aversion on the part of voters, legislators, or board members - thus it is an over-simplification to think of disapproval as simply 'negative approval'. Similar asymmetries apply in economics, where they are studied in behavioral finance, and in social sciences and ethics, as the expression of tolerances versus preferences, e.g. as in opinion polls.

The well-known lifeboat game is often portrayed in fiction as having a disapproval voting form, with the poor individual who is most disapproved of being tossed overboard.

General-purpose methods of disapproval voting, e.g. for use in general elections as an electoral reform, have been proposed and discussed by political scientists, but there is little literature on the subject. Most discussion of the issue is concentrated in the theory of consensus decision making, where small numbers of members disapproving of a measure have disproportionate power to block it.

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