<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">Given that there's potentially more information in a ratings ballot than in a rankings ballot, one should be able to construct an election method based on rankings ballots that better serves the voters than anything that only uses ratings ballots. I'd guess that's the attraction to 'range voting', or ratings ballots, in general.<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Of course, my entrant into the fray for election methods that count ratings ballots is "Instant Runoff Normalized Ratings". It was designed to solve those basic flaws in straight rating summation.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><A href="http://bolson.org/voting/methods.html#IRNR">http://bolson.org/voting/methods.html#IRNR</A></DIV><DIV><A href="http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/Instant_Runoff_Normalized_Ratings">http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/Instant_Runoff_Normalized_Ratings</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I still claim it's relatively good, even if nothing's perfect, with regard to fairness, honesty, and good results.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I haven't been reading the list too closely for the last couple months, but from skimming it looks like there was some work into ratings-condorcet hybrids. I ought to go back and look at those some time.<DIV><DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Aug 11, 2005, at 5:32 AM, Eric Gorr wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Rob Lanphier wrote:</FONT></DIV> <BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; "><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Hi Warren,</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; "><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">I'm interested in Range Voting, since it appears to be popular among</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; "><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">many electoral reform advocates here.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></FONT></DIV> <BR></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">I too get the impression that it is generally considered among the best voting method possible, but for one truly fatal flaw. It suffers from the fact that it encourages dishonest voting. Why? It is one of the voting methods in which voters are able to effectively vote strategically with zero information about how the other voters are going to vote - basically<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>they merely provide the highest possible ranking to those candidates they want to see win and the lowest possible ranking to those they don't. Those not voting this way are at a disadvantage.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">This, of course, effectively reduces the method to Approval Voting.</FONT></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>