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Scoring Methods vs. Ranked Voting

Why Approval Voting and STAR Voting are not forms of RCV.

Ranked (ordinal) methods ask voters to order candidates: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on. Scoring (cardinal) methods ask voters to rate candidates independently — so two candidates can get the same score, and the ballot captures how much a voter likes each one, not just the order.

Because they use a fundamentally different ballot, scoring methods sit outside the ranked-voting family. Lumping them under "RCV" is a common but real category error.

A note on the word "rating." Rating, scoring, and grading all name the same thing — a cardinal ballot where each candidate gets an independent value (0–5 stars, A–F, etc.). The term is slippery because it sounds like ranking and gets used loosely, so this library treats score as the precise term and uses rate/rating/grade only as everyday synonyms — never as a kind of ranking.

Ballot What it captures Examples
Ranked (ordinal) Order candidates 1, 2, 3… Relative order only (strict or weak ranks) RCV-IRV, STV, Condorcet (Ranked Robin, Schulze, Ranked Pairs), Borda, Bucklin
Scored (cardinal) Rate/approve each candidate Strength of support Approval, Score
Hybrid (score + runoff) Rate each candidate 0–5 (scoring round), then an automatic runoff between the top two Strength of support and a majority check STAR

Approval Voting

Voters simply mark every candidate they approve of — no ranking, no scoring beyond yes/no. The candidate approved by the most voters wins. Because you can approve several candidates at once, similar candidates don't split each other's support, which directly attacks the spoiler problem.

STAR Voting (Score Then Automatic Runoff)

Voters score each candidate 0–5. The two highest-scoring candidates advance to an automatic runoff, where each ballot counts for whichever finalist it scored higher. This combines the expressiveness of scoring with a final majoritarian check — a deliberate hybrid of a scored ballot and a majority runoff, which is why it sits in its own row above. Full explanation: STAR's hybrid nature.

Where scoring methods are weak (for balance)

Scoring isn't free of trade-offs, and an honest case names them. STAR and Score fail Later-No-Harm and the Majority criterion — a candidate a majority scores highest can still lose — which is a legitimate objection ranked-method advocates raise. Score ballots also reward strategic min/max exaggeration (rate everyone 0 or 5), and Approval's single threshold is comparatively blunt. The "equal vote / Test of Balance" argument made for STAR is contested, not a neutral fact, and no method escapes Gibbard–Satterthwaite — every system has some scenario where honesty is punished. The fair claim is about specific trade-offs, not overall superiority.

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