[EM] range ballots chew up slots; "unsupported" range voting claims

[Scott Ritchie]

On Thu, 2005-08-18 at 21:05 -0400, Warren Smith wrote:

> I do not especially recommend running range elections in this style.
> I would much prefer it if there were voting machines specifically designed
> for range voting.  However, because range voting CAN be done on
> plurality machines as a stopgap measure, that makes it a lot
> more adoptible than many other forms of voting, for
> example IRV, which CANNOT be done on many kinds of plurality machines.
> 
Indicating a ranked ballot on a machine not designed for it is no more
difficult than indicating a ranged ballot.  This follows naturally from
the fact that you can do a one-way transformation on a ranged ballot to
a ranked ballot.

There's a great picture of an old New York lever machine converted to
STV during New York's brief stint with it in the forties here:

http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/history/public_history/PR/voting_machine.html

At least, I think that's what's going on in that picture.

Thanks,
Scott Ritchie