On: Counting Votes Is Hard

[dragonwriter]

> Yes, but less so.

The one actual concrete attempt to test this I've seen shows it, in the tested scenario, more vulnerable to strategic voting than plurality (or any other tested method.)

[1] http://rangevoting.org/ElectionByMajorityJudgmentExptEvidenc... [The method is referred to as "point summing" rather than "range voting".]

[quadrangle → dragonwriter]

The very site where you link to places that link in an article describing in detail why they call that entire paper "insanely wrong-headed"

I think that paper is misguided and incorrect as an attack on range voting. Here's the page where that link occurs: http://www.rangevoting.org/MeasTheory.html

Here's the anchor: http://www.rangevoting.org/MeasTheory.html#numbersallowed

Finally, if you sum the scores, you are NOT doing range voting as is generally suggested. The idea of range voting is to average the scores. That is a totally different thing, especially when you (as you should) allow for no-opinion votes.

I can only conclude that the paper in question is not addressing actual range-voting as proposed. That said, I did not read it completely (nor am I especially interested in doing so, although someone could summarize the issues perhaps if any exist I have not addressed here)

[dllthomas → dragonwriter]

I'll have to dig into that when I've more time. It doesn't change the main thrust of the above - that plurality voting does a poor job picking the "candidate most ranked first" in the presence of strategic voting, because you're picking the candidate most ranked first amongst votes cast which - in strategic ballots - will typically not match the candidate ranked first among voter preferences.