[EM] reply to Gilmour attack on range voting & social utility; CCd to RangeVoting

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 04:08 PM 12/2/2005, rob brown wrote:
>"Deluded" is certainly a word that comes to mind regarding the 
>suggestion that people will, in significant numbers, choose to 
>reduce the strength of their vote to some non-zero value below the 
>maximum possible strength they are allowed.

>I don't even know how to make this argument, it just seems common sense.

So did a flat earth. However, even the ancients knew, those who 
actually looked at the sky, that the earth was not flat.

And Mr. Smith has actually looked at voter behavior with Range. Yes, 
it was only a poll, it wasn't an actual election -- Mr. Smith and his 
coworkers accosted voters leaving the polls in 2004.

But voters *did* vote intermediate numbers in Range. Voting an 
intermediate vote in Range is casting a diluted vote. If the vote is 
higher than average, it is weak support, and if it is lower than 
average, it is weak opposition, in both cased compared to voting the 
maximum or zero.

Further, it was pointed out, voters do choose to abstain on 
particular questions or races. Yes, Mr. Brown covered this, it would 
seem, by specifying "non-zero" value for the vote. Yet if I am 
willing to reduce my vote to a zero strength -- by abstaining -- why, 
if the ballot allowed me to do it easily, would I not be willing to 
reduce my vote strength to an intermediate strength?

He's willing to drive all the way there, or he's willing to stay 
home, but he's not willing to drive part way....

And, where people vote Range, they *do* vote intermediate values. QED.