>Gilmour: If we have a fixed range scale, say 1 = least preferred, 1000 = most preferred, it is perfectly obvi ous that every voter will mark 1 for his/her least preferred candidate, 1000 for his/her most preferred candidate, and sc ore the others somewhere between the extremes. Then all voters will contribute equally. No problem.
But that was NOT what was actually suggested. It was suggested that the scores used by the voters c ould (or should) reflect the differences in their strengths of feeling, ie without obvious reference to any fixed sca le. So one voter might range 1 to 10, another 1 to 100, and another 1 to 1000. It was then suggested that these abso lute differences should be taken forward into the counting method and that that would maximise the social utility of the result. Well it might - but it would be undemocratic. --WDS: JG, you have misunderstood me. I have never advocated that "the scores used by the voters could (or should) reflect the differences in their strengths of feeling, ie without obvious reference to any fixed scale." I have always advocated using a fixed scale such as 0-to-99. I agree if any real number, with no constraints, were permitted as a vote, the resulting system would be completely ridiculous for any human use (although it might be ok for robot use, and it in fact is what human judges of boxing matches do) So with this massive misunderstanding cleared up (and I apologize if I were responsible for it) I think we are presumably now in agreement. wds ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
