[EM] range voting mind-bogglingly stupid? (Reply to Rob Brown re voter strategy)

[rob brown]

On 12/3/05, Warren Smith <wds at euclid.math.temple.edu> wrote:
Hmmmm, it appears I have struck a nerve.....

Second.  Rob Brown relies on his alleged knowledge of human psychology to
> argue
> people will not range vote, they will approval-vote.


I'm basing things on the rational self interest model, which tends to work
pretty well in economics and game theory.  I could go on for hours about why
humans tend to fit this model well for Darwinian reasons, but that would be
out of place here.

http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/prin/txt/Neoch/Eco111t.html

And incidentally, I don't believe all people are 100% rational and self
interested.  I do, however, believe that systems that are designed to be
used in a rational-self-interested way, tend to be predictable and stable.
This is not a radical concept that I just made up.

Therefore, he argues, it is
> silly to allow them the option of range-voting.  But in fact, so far
> there have been at least 3 people (WDS, Jan Kok, and Lomax) here who
> have expressed support for RV and/or stated that they have intentionally
> gone with a weak vote, i.e. in Lomax's case intentionally abstaining from
> voting on an issue he felt he had little knowledge about.


You really think a sampling of people in an election methods group is a fair
sampling of the population at large?   Is it not possible they have an
additional agenda (advocacy of a voting method) that might skew things a
tad?  Presumably WDS is you?

Incidentally, abstaining from voting is not the same.  I have abstained from
voting on a candidate plenty of times.  I'm talking about voting, but giving
it a lower (but non-zero) weight than you are allowed.  That I find, if not
unlikely, certainly unfair in that it penalizes sincerity.

In any case, I'm not interested in continuing this....the range voting folks
have completely lost me with your arguments.  I'm 100% behind James Gilmour
when he asks:

> So you think that just because I feel more strongly than you do in my
> liking for A and my dislike for B, just because I shout about it more loudly
> than you do, and just because I mark my ballot paper with bigger numbers
> than you do, my view of A and B should have more effect on the outcome than
> your view?
>
That pretty much sums it up for me.  I didn't use the term "mind-bogglingly
stupid", but if you want to attribute that to me with regard to the above,
I've got no reason to  argue.

-rob
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