Rated, evaluative, graded, or cardinal voting rules are a class of voting methods that allow voters to state how strongly they support a candidate, by giving each one a grade on a separate scale.

The distribution of ratings for each candidate—i.e. the percentage of voters who assign them a particular score—is called their merit profile. For example, if candidates are graded on a 4-point scale, one candidate's merit profile may be 25% on every possible rating (1, 2, 3, and 4), while a perfect candidate would have a merit profile where 100% of voters assign them a score of 4.

Since rated methods allow the voters to express how strongly they support a candidate, these methods are not covered by Arrow's impossibility theorem, and their resistance to the spoiler effect becomes a more complex matter. Some rated methods are immune to the spoiler effect when every voter rates the candidates on an absolute scale, but they are not when the voters' rating scales change based on the candidates who are running.

There are several voting systems that allow independent ratings of each candidate, which allow them to be immune to the spoiler effect given certain types of voter behavior. For example:

However, other rated voting methods have a spoiler effect no matter what scales the voters use:

In addition, there are many different proportional cardinal rules, often called approval-based committee rules.

Ratings ballots can be converted to ranked/preferential ballots, assuming equal ranks are allowed. For example:

Arrow's impossibility theorem does not apply to cardinal rules.