Majority Approval Voting
Majority Approval Voting (MAV) is a modern, evaluative version of Bucklin voting. Voters rate each candidate into one of a predefined set of ratings or grades, such as the letter grades "A", "B", "C", "D", and "F". As with any Bucklin system, first the top-grade ("A") votes for each candidate are counted as approvals. If one or more candidate has a majority, then the highest majority wins. If not, votes at next grade down ("B") are tentatively added to each candidate's approval scores. If there is one candidate with a majority, they win; if there are more than one with a majority, the "B" votes are removed and the highest sub-majority wins; and if there are still no candidates with a majority, the process continues with the "C", "D", and finally "F" votes.
The grades or ranks for this system could be numbers instead of letter grades. Terms such as "graded MAV" or "rated MAV" can be used to distinguish these possibilities if necessary. In either case, descriptive labels such as are recommended. For instance, for the letter grades:
- A: Unconditional support
- B: Support if there are no other majorities above "C"
- C: Support if there are no other majorities above "D"
- D: Oppose unless there are no other majorities at all.
- F: Unconditional opposition.
This system was promoted and named due to the confusing array of Bucklin and Median proposals. It is intended to be a relatively generic, simple Bucklin option with good resistance to the chicken dilemma. It was named by a poll on the electorama mailing list in June 2013.