>Laatu: You used the same word "poll" that I used. People obviously 1) didn't have any major reason to try to force the results in any direction and 2) probably were not told and did not understand the strategic possibilities of Range Voting. People may also typically want to answer sincerely in opinion polls.
--actually, anyone examining http://rangevoting.org/Beaumont.html would see that right up front voters are instructed "To maximize the effect of your ballot, start by giving your favorite candidate a 10, and your least favorite a 0, and scoring the rest relative to that." Also, my old 2004 exit poll said right ontop of its ballot also "Please vote the way you actually would if the real election were being held using range voting" but this was evidently not felt to be explicitly meeting Laatu's criticism enough, which is exactly why Clay Shentrup's ballots in 2006 went further as I just said. Also, exit polls are normally regarded as the most accurate kind of poll since they are of real voters who just voted. So in conclusion: (a) cease these guesses and aspersions and actually read the ballots (b) Yes, I am willing to believe real elections would induce more approval-style range voting than polls, but a poll result this enormous and massive (80%, 97%) is NOT, I put it to you, likely to swing to over 90% the other way like Laatu seems to think it will. I challenge Laatu to cite any poll on any occasion in the entire history of the world, where such a massive inversion happened. Warren D. Smith http://rangevoting.org ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
