What is the Difference Between Approval Voting and Ranked Choice Voting

Approval voting is not ranked choice voting. While both are alternative voting methods, they are different families of voting. 

In approval voting, a voter selects all the candidates they support. All the ballots are gathered  and tallied, and the person selected the most times wins.

In ranked choice voting, a voter puts the candidates in a ranked order of preference. All first-choice votes are counted, and if someone doesn't reach 50% of first-choice votes an instant run-off ensues. The candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed based on the second choices of those voters. If those voters didn't pick a second choice, their ballots are removed from the entire process, or "exhausted." This continues until someone gets 50% of the remaining votes, or if only two candidates remain. 

At CES we believe people can support multiple concepts at the same time - this is the core idea of approval voting. Every person is entitled to like approval voting, ranked choice voting (RCV) or both.