As was recently pointed out, it is correct that with range ballots run on ordinary plurality voting machines, slots (e.g. "levers" on NY-style machines) get "chewed up" 10 times faster than with plain plurality voting. Assuming 10 levels. With L levels, L times faster.
Consequently if enough elections or large enough elections, more machines would be needed, or you'd have to have fewer levels. So, not so fun. On the other hand with say, optical scan machines, you'd "chew up those little pen-fill blobs on the piece of paper" which seems much less of a limitation. Ditto with many kinds of punch card machines. So I am not saying range voting is wonderful to run on all plurality machines. I *AM* saying, it can be done on every plurality machine in the USA, with varying levels of convenience or inconvenience depending on the machine type and the election. I do not especially recommend running range elections in this style. I would much prefer it if there were voting machines specifically designed for range voting. However, because range voting CAN be done on plurality machines as a stopgap measure, that makes it a lot more adoptible than many other forms of voting, for example IRV, which CANNOT be done on many kinds of plurality machines. Finally, it has been claimed that I make a lot of "unsupported statements" about range voting. (Which itself was an unsupported statement...) If a list of such statements is brought to my attention, I will try to back them up. In fact I have already done so on various occasions and the CRV web site also backs me up a good deal. But anyhow, whatever statement you find insufficiently supported, query me on and I'll try to get back to EM on that statement. I believe everything I say is supported, ... but I am not perfect. Anyhow please let me know. Thank you. ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info