Bucklin voting

Bucklin rules varied, but here is a typical example: Voters are allowed rank preference ballots (first, second, third, etc.).

When used with a cardinal voting scale instead of ordinal ranking, Bucklin's balloting method is the same as that of highest median rules like the Majority Judgment.

Due to this difference, Bucklin passes some voting criteria that Majority Judgment fails, and vice versa.

[citation needed] For multi-member districts, voters marked as many first choices as there are seats to be filled.

In some localities, the voter was required to mark a full set of first choices for his or her ballot to be valid.

However, allowing voters to cast three simultaneous votes for three seats (block voting) could allow an organized 51%, or the largest minority in a contest with three or more slates, to win all three seats in the first round, so this method does not give proportional representation.

Bucklin voting was first used in 1909 in Grand Junction, Colorado, and then used in more than sixty other cities including Denver and San Francisco.

In Minnesota, it was ruled unconstitutional, in a decision that disallowed votes for multiple candidates, in opposition to some voters' single expressed preference,[5] and in a variant used in Oklahoma, the particular application required voters in multi-candidate elections to rank more than one candidate, or the vote would not be counted; and the preferential primary was therefore found unconstitutional.

If equal and skipped rankings are allowed, Bucklin passes or fails the same criteria as highest median rules like the Majority Judgment.

The example shows that, depending upon who does it, bullet voting may distort the outcome and could be counterproductive for some voters who do it (here, those from Chattanooga and Nashville).