Historical Uses of Approval Voting

Governmental

• Fargo, ND became the first city in the US to implement approval voting for citywide elections in November 2018. The city held its first approval voting election in June of 2020 to fill two city commissioner seats. The first mayoral election was held in 2022.
• St. Louis, MO became the second city to adopt approval voting for citywide elections in November 2020. Citizens voted to implement nonpartisan, approval voting elections with a top-two runoff with 68% of the vote. The winner of the first approval election in 2021, Tishaura Jones, received 57% approval after getting 30% of the vote just four years earlier.

Historical

• It is believe the original form of voting in ancient Greece was approval voting. Greeks would drop black or white pebbles into jars to voice their approval or disapproval.
• Renaissance Venice used a (-1, 0, 1) scale version of score voting for government elections

Intergovernmental & International

• United Nations – The U.N. uses approval voting to elect its secretary general.
• Cardinals of the Catholic Church used approval voting to select the Pope. 
• The Greek parliament was elected using approval voting from 1864-1926.

Organizations

• Mathematical Association of America (32,000 members)
• American Mathematical Society (30,000 members)
• Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (12,000 members)
• American Statistical Association (15,000 members)
• The Pro Football Hall of Fame
• The Society for Social Choice and Welfare 
• The Society for Judgment and Decision Making
• The Webby Awards celebrates achievement found online. They use score voting in their initial round and then approval voting for their final round.
• Python Software Foundation Steering Council

Political Parties

• Colorado Libertarian Party
• Texas Libertarian Party
• Texas Green Party
• Reform Party (US National)