[EM] ignoring "strength of opinion"

[Andrew Myers]

On Wed, Nov 30, 2005 at 03:17:23PM -0800, rob brown wrote:
>    I believe that condorcet elections intentionally ignore "strength of
>    opinion" information for the exact same practical reason.  Since there is
>    no way to avoid collecting some strength of oopinion information (while
>    still collecting the information we *do* need), we have to consciously,
>    intentionally ignore that information in the tabulation.  This is NOT a
>    bad thing.

I agree completely. If you want range voting to work, I think you have to
provide voters with an incentive not to amplify: i.e., cast a ballot with
high-strength preferences when the actual preference is weak.  For example, it
could simply be made inconvenient to do so (maybe you have to visit multiple
voting booths). Or by charging $X or X% of your yearly earnings. Or by
preventing the voter from voting in the next N elections. I don't think these
make sense for US political elections, but I'm sure there are some plausible
scenarios where this kind of incentive mechanism would be workable.

-- Andrew