[EM] ignoring "strength of opinion"

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 06:00 PM 12/1/2005, rob brown wrote:
>I cannot imagine a scenario where it doesn't make the most strategic 
>sense to give your vote the maximum weight, assuming you vote at all.

Consider this a failure of imagination, not of range voting....

On issue voting, one may have a weak opinion, and therefore one may 
rationally cast a weak vote. If *everyone* votes in the same way, 
then the weak vote will prevail.

Suppose one is living in a society where some people understand 
things better than others. But nobody knows who belongs in which 
group, and the group varies with the question.

Someone who understands this may understand that the maximum utility 
is obtained by voting with a strength proportional to the clarity of 
understanding one enjoys on the subject of the issue. If everyone 
does this, everyone will participate in the decision, but those who 
are voting only on a mild hunch may quite wisely choose to give 
greater voting power to those who feel strongly that they understand 
the matter.

To imagine that one should always pursue one's preference with 
maximum strength is to imagine that one's preference is necessarily wise.

I'd suggest that an enlightened voter would understand that it is 
impossible for one person to understand everything well, that, on at 
least some subjects, one's preferences and opinions will be mistaken, 
based on ignorance or error.