While ranked-choice voting may be the more fashionable choice among those favoring an upheaval in the system of American elections, that is not the only alternative to the traditional first-to-the-post system that still dominates contests for public office.
Say hello to the newest option, "approval voting."
This method has been approved for use in just one jurisdiction: Fargo, the biggest city in North Dakota (population 125,000). Now, proponents are going after a much bigger prize – hoping to get a referendum on the ballot to change the municipal elections to approval voting in at least one major league city, St. Louis (population 303,000).
Under approval voting, citizens may vote for – or approve – as many names on the ballot as they want. The winner is the person who has the broadest approval, by being endorsed on the most ballots.
Aaron Hamlin, executive director of the nonpartisan and nonprofit Center for Election Science, described approval voting as "this kind of shovel-ready voting method that actually performs very well at the same time."
Among its advantages, Hamlin said, are that it:
- Provides a voting system similar to what we use now, which makes it easier for citizens to accept and cheaper to implement.
- Gives third parties a more accurate measure of their support.
- Favors candidates with the broadest appeal.
- Allows candidates who feared that they may become spoilers to feel comfortable running.
Political leaders in Fargo contacted CES, which is the most prominent advocate of the method, about switching to approval voting after a 2015 election in which the winner of a six-way contest for a spot on the city commission captured just 22 percent of the vote.
The switch was approved by 64 percent of the city's voters in a referendum last fall and will be used in the next municipal election in 2020.
Eight hundred miles to the southeast, a group called St. Louis Approves is working with the center to gather the 10,000 signatures necessary to put the idea of approval voting before the voters in a referendum.
The effort in Missouri's second-biggest city was launched by five grassroots activists for reasons similar to what prompted the change in Fargo. The activists were concerned that candidates were winning multi-candidate races with too small a share of the vote. They hope the new system will encourage more involvement and higher turnout.
Hamlin said approval voting is preferable to ranked-choice voting because it has the same advantages but promises much more straightforward simplicity. The ranked-choice system (also called instant runoffs) has been embraced by a score of municipalities and at least five states for their 2020 Democratic presidential contests, and may come to New York City after a referendum this fall. But its critics, mainly Republicans, say RCV is too complicated and vulnerable to malfeasance.
Hamlin said the Center for Election Science remains on track in its efforts to expand use of approval voting. If successful in St. Louis, advocates hope to move on to other large cities and then to state and federal elections.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.