over a more-preferred one in 3-candidate elections. However, detractors respond that it provides motivation to rank a less-preferred and more-preferred candidate equally or near-equally (i.e., both 0-1 or both 98-99). This could lead to undemocratic results if different segments of the population used strategy at significantly different rates. (Note that traditional first-past-the-post voting forces all candidates except one to be ranked equally, so that all voters are compressing their preferences equally.) Addressing these criticisms, the Equal Vote Coalition, a voting reform advocacy group, proposes a variant of score voting with an extra second round featuring the two top-rated candidates, in which the candidate with the majority of preference wins. It is claimed that the existence of a second round would discourage approval-style strategic ballots and exaggeration of ratings, making it behave like a hybrid of ranked and rated voting systems. Advocacy Albert Heckscher was one of the earliest proponents, advocating for a form of score voting he called the "immanent method" in his 1892 dissertation, in which voters assign any number between -1 and +1 to each alternative, simulating their individual deliberation. This variant is also known as combined approval voting. Currently, score voting is advocated by The Center for Election Science, Center for Range Voting, Citoyens pour le Vote de Valeur, Counted and the website RangeVote.com. Guy Ottewell, who helped develop the method of approval voting, now endorses score voting. Kenneth Arrow is on record as saying that "score [...] is probably the best." No elected official in the United States is known to endorse score voting. Since 2014, the Equal Vote Coalition advocates a variant method (STAR) with an extra second evaluation step to address some of the criticisms of traditional score voting. See also Borda count Cardinal voting List of democracy and elections-related topics Consensus decision-making Decision making Democracy Implicit utilitarian voting Utilitarian social choice rule Hot or Not — a real-world example Majority judgment — similar voting method, based on medians instead of averages Notes External links The Center for Range Voting and its simplified introductory homepage The Center for Election Science includes an article on Score Voting Equal Vote Coalition, which promotes a STAR voting, a variant of score voting, in the United States RangeVote includes a user-friendly presentation on score voting\ Simulation of various voting models for close elections Article by Brian Olson. Electoral systems Single-winner electoral systems Cardinal electoral systems Monotonic electoral systems