The phrase "one person, one vote" is also the root of much mischief. While we certainly want everyone to have equal influence over the outcome, the fact is, in

The phrase "one person, one vote" is also the root of much mischief. While we certainly want everyone to have equal influence over the outcome, the fact is, in a race with more than two candidates, you're always voting for some of them and against others. With two candidates, this fact can be glossed over, because you're always voting for one and against the other one; there are no more possibilities. But with more than two, "one person, one vote" suggests that you should only be able to vote for one of them, overlooking the fact that this forces you to vote against all the others. You're still casting N votes about N candidates; they're just subject to the rule that only one of them can be affirmative. In that light, it is clear that the rule is utterly arbitrary. The correct motto, I submit, is "one person, one candidate, one vote". Approval voting falls directly out of that. Every AV ballot has the same amount of influence over the result as every other, because they're all points on a hypersphere whose center coordinates are all 1/2. That is, they all represent points equally far from the point of indifference.