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 added to each candidate's approval scores. If there are one or more candidates with a majority, the winner is whichever of those had more votes at higher grades (the previous stage). If not, then the next grade down ("C") is added and the process repeats; and so on.

Note that if this process continues without a majority until the last grade ("F") is added, no new rules are needed. Since by that point all grades will be counted, all candidate tallies will reach 100%, so the process above naturally elects the candidate with the most approvals at the higher grades (D or above); that is, whichever has the fewest F's.

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.