The excess method: a multiwinner approval voting procedure to allocate wasted votes

In using approval voting to elect multiple winners a committee or council, it is desirable that excess votes—approvals beyond those candidate, especially shoo-in, needs win seat—not be wasted. Common procedures such as sequential proportional (seqPAV) candidates in sequence and depreciate the weights of voters who have gotten one more their approved elected. As consequence, voter “punished” for approving candidate when his her was not necessary To alleviate this problem, we propose modification seqPAV call method. each round, method determines votes winning transfers them other by winner’s supporters. doing so, transforms wasted into support voter’s candidates, later rounds deserve, may benefit from, receiving additional support. parliamentary systems with party lists, equivalent thus ensures approximate representation political parties. When are restricted single list, both methods coincide well-known apportionment due Jefferson/D’Hondt.