Editing Disapproval voting (section)

==Disapproval expression in other electoral systems==
Six regions of [[Russia]] and several other countries of the region allow voters to vote [[none of the above|"against all" candidates]]. In Canada, one can appear at a polling station and [[Refused ballot]]; although this does not count as a vote, refused ballots are tallied separately from [[spoiled ballot]]s and no-shows.

Any [[electoral system]] permits some expression of disapproval, but these are necessarily confused with expressions of choice or approval, leading some to conclude that separating these expressions is best:

After the [[U.S. presidential election, 2000]], some commentators suggested that the ability to approve of a candidate, but disapprove of his or her party affiliation or elements of his or her platform, might be quite important, and that satisfaction of citizens with the political system might well depend on such an [[electoral reform]].

A group of members of the [[Green Party (United States)|United States Green Party]], calling itself "[[Greens for Gore]]", made explicit the fact that they were voting for Gore but supported not the platform of the [[United States Democratic Party|Democratic Party]] which nominated him, but that of their own Green Party, which they called on Gore to implement. This is an example of disapproval voting on an informal level, where voters found a way to approve of the candidate, while disapproving of party and platform – and of his key opponent, [[George W. Bush]].

The [[Soviet Union]] experimented with a form of disapproval voting for [[Multimember district|multi-winner elections]] during the [[Perestroika]], in which voters could cross off the names of candidates they did not approve of, and those with the greatest approval (above a 50% threshold) were elected.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/15/world/soviet-to-begin-multi-candidate-election-experiment-in-june.html|title=Soviet to Begin Multi-Candidate Election Experiment in June|last=Shabad|first=Theodore|date=1987-04-15|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-02-18|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331|quote=Voters may withhold their vote from particular candidates by crossing out their names on the ballot.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/20/world/in-southern-russia-a-glimpse-of-democracy.html|title=In Southern Russia, a Glimpse of Democracy|last1=Keller|first1=Bill|date=1987-06-20|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-02-18|last2=Times|first2=Special To the New York|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331|quote=On Sunday, every voter will enter a booth and scratch off names until the number of candidates listed equals the number of offices to be filled.}}</ref> Before that, the voting was but a sham: formally a disapproval system with only one name on the ballot, the voters weren't even supposed to enter the booth for striking it out to spoil or write in another candidate but immediately drop the collected ballot into the box (hence, no secret suffrage).<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.csmonitor.com/1984/0301/030117.html|title = In the Soviet Union, every candidate for the parliament is a front-runner|journal = Christian Science Monitor|date = March 1984}}</ref>

It is also often said that votes for a "[[protest candidate]]" or a "[[compromise candidate]]" can be viewed as disapproval votes, since the undesirable characteristics of the incumbent or alternative, respectively, can be said to be the voters' main concern. This of course is impossible to determine from the electoral results, as a vote intended to choose that candidate is indistinguishable in most systems from one that was intended to block or disapprove of another.