[EM] I hit upon why rating is easier than ranking.

[Juho Laatu]

In sincere / non-competitive Range mid-range default value could make sense. If 0 is the neutral value, then a negative value would mean that the voter prefers a random unknown candidate to that candidate.

In competitive elections the default value should normally be the lowest value / ranking for the reason that you mentioned. It is not good if the most unknown candidates are considered better than the most known ones by default. It may well be that in a competitive Approval style election with more than two candidates the well known candidates will get more bottom ratings than top ratings (i.e. there are many bullet votes).

Juho



On 10.5.2011, at 2.03, Kevin Venzke wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> So, not everybody knows that you can have equal ranking and truncation in
> rank methods. But how about this idea that the default rating in Range
> ought to be mid-range (i.e. half an approval)? Is this defensible? It
> seems to me you'd get write-ins winning much of the time.
> 
> Or, if write-ins aren't allowed to profit from this rule, I have to ask
> why you should have this half-vote privilege just for getting your name
> on the ballot...? Is the assumption that if people had the opportunity
> to learn about you, you must have some merit, even if the voters didn't
> bother? Or would the write-in restriction just be a kludge to prevent
> total chaos?
> 
> Kevin Venzke
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