[EM] Suggested name for Range Voting: Free Voting

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 12:21 AM 6/17/2006, Jonathan Lundell wrote:
>Free-range voting?

I'm making an exception to my general avoidance of posting here. Yes, 
Free Range Voting is a nice name. The "Free" in it refers to a voter 
being allowed a broad range of rating levels rather than the black 
and white of plurality or approval, or the similarly limited choice 
of ranked methods (which are black and white with respect to every 
pairwise election).

However, to be truly free, voting must not restrict the voter to 
personal participation. That is a cost, and quite a significant one. 
At common law, any right that can be personally exercised may also be 
exercised through an attorney-in-fact, also known as a proxy.

Voters should be free to choose whether or not to vote personally or 
through a proxy. Warren's Asset Voting is one scheme that allows 
this. (Indeed, it is much more free than most think of it, because 
they don't realize that voters could vote for *anyone* or even for 
themselves, if they want to personally participate in the next stage 
of the election. In other words, it is *not* necessary to choose a 
candidate, per se, which is one objection that has been raised. A 
false objection, in my opinion, based on a failure to realize that, 
generally, if one would trust a candidate with the nuclear button, 
for example, one should rationally trust the same person to make an 
acceptable choice in whom to so trust. If a President can't be 
trusted to delegate authority, that President will be a terrible 
president. But it is also false in that such a choice need not be made.

Proxy voting can be combined with any other voting method. If it were 
combined with Range, Free Range would truly have earned every aspect 
of its name.