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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Angle]

An interesting site I found: http://rangevoting.org/

They've got a lot of stuff, but the most interesting one I found is Score Voting, which is where elections work like the Olympics - You give each candidate a score from 0 - 9 and whoever has the highest average wins. If we were using it, I'd probably give most candidates 0 or 9, except maybe the libertarians, who I'd give a 1 or 2.

[smjjames]

An interesting site I found: http://rangevoting.org/

They've got a lot of stuff, but the most interesting one I found is Score Voting, which is where elections work like the Olympics - You give each candidate a score from 0 - 9 and whoever has the highest average wins. If we were using it, I'd probably give most candidates 0 or 9, except maybe the libertarians, who I'd give a 1 or 2.

Except, you know, theres going to be trolls, people giving everybody the same number, and people not even reading the directions, not to mention that the next guys 8 vote is going to have more value than your 7.

Then theres the calculation of the whole thing and if theres even ONE error, it could screw the whole thing up.

IMO, that just adds complexity to a system that doesn't really need to be more complex.

[Angle]

Eh, I'm not terribly concerned with trolls - If they go through voting for the people they think most likely to screw up, well, whatever, no one else will vote for those people, so things work out. people who vote the same for each candidate might as well not be voting at all, so that's fine. And yeah, as I noted most people would just vote in 0's and 9's - but I don't think that's actually a problem, and  it leaves the possibility of people expressing more nuance if they wish. And I don't see one error screwing the thing up anymore than it already would. And voting is actually really simple IMO. The anti-fraud stuff is somewhat complicated, but that's a separate issue.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Except, you know, theres going to be trolls, people giving everybody the same number, and people not even reading the directions,

Which I'm pretty sure occurs in every election, regardless of what voting system is being used. Plus marking everyone the same number is functionally the same as not voting, so that isn't going to be a problem.

not to mention that the next guys 8 vote is going to have more value than your 7.

Which is the entire point of the system. The guy you really want to be elected gets a 9, while the other candidates get lesser numbers based on how much you'd like to see them elected. If a guy put down an 8 opposed to your 7, then he obviously approves of that candidate more than you. What's wrong with that?

Then theres the calculation of the whole thing and if theres even ONE error, it could screw the whole thing up.

Well... Yeah. This kind of system would work best electronically, I think, with maybe a scantron sheet if you wanted a physical copy for recounts and things like that. Doing it completely by hand would be horrible.

[Angle]

According to the site, modern voting machines can already do this kind of thing.

[Dutchling]

Seems like a flawed system. If you don't give everyone but your preferred candidate a 0 you're putting your preferred candidate at a disadvantage.

If you do give everybody but your preferred candidate a 0 you might as well scrap the entire thing since it doesn't do anything different than a normal election.

[Angle]

But what if you have multiple preferred cadidates? For example, I'd really like to see the green party win - but I absolutely HATE the republicans. So I'd go Green 9, Dem 9, repub 0, and then intermediate votes for the other candidates. It also means the parties could put forth multiple candidates.

[Reelya]

Horrible idea. If you scored realistically and honestly, the scores would be distributed in a bell curve - i.e. clustered at the center. Someone who exaggerated their likes and dislikes (only voting 0 or 9) would swing the election more than the "honest" voter. Putting "1 or 2" points in a Libertarian will totally be wasted. Start by assuming that 50% of voters vote 0 democrat and 9 republican, and the other half of voters are the opposite - both don't want the other guy to win, so they min/max their vote for the 2 biggest parties. If this is the case, anything less than every single person voting 5 for Libertarian can't possibly lead to a Libertarian win.

So there's a strategy for maximizing your vote value - only vote the min or max for all candidates based on whether you accept/don't accept the idea that they will win.

Since everyone who isn't an idiot will end up voting like this, it makes no sense to have a "range" and you might as well just label two choices 0 and 1 for each candidate, to make it fairer and less game-y.

It really doesn't do much that IRV doesn't already address, and adds a whole lot of useless complexity that turns out people will game around anyway.

[Angle]

but there is a use for the intermediate values - if you think a candidate isn't as good as your preferred candidate, but better than the competition. I myself would give intermediate scores to most of the independents. The libertarians, for example, would probably get a 1-5, depending on how sane they looked, while the more left-leaning parties would get 5-9's.

[Reelya]

Nobody will win with a "1-5" you'd have to give at least a 6 for any third party candidate to win. Because each major party candidate will be getting all 0's or 9s, so an average of ~5 each. This is guaranteed because pretty much everyone will want to stop one or the other getting elected, so they will have to spread their vote out for the majors as much as possible.

Literally everyone would have to vote 5-6 minimum for the third party guy to even stand a chance. Assuming not everyone will give a mid score to the Libertarian guy, realistically, you'd have to max his vote as well, and even then, it's unlikely that 50% of voters will do likewise.

[Dutchling]

The system only makes sense if the guys you give nines and zeroes are the de facto contenders for office and the rest are underdogs.

If the two most likely candidates are (to you) a 6 and a 9 you cannot vote honestly unless you're an idiot.

[Reelya]

The system only makes sense if the guys you give nines and zeroes are the de facto contenders for office and the rest are underdogs.

If the two most likely candidates are (to you) a 6 and a 9 you cannot vote honestly unless you're an idiot.

Yup, the guy who thinks different to you will give 9/0 if he's smart. Making the score 15/9 and you end up helping the guy you didn't want as much.

[smjjames]

As the others said, the system can be manipulated pretty easily, and it just adds more complexity to the system that doesn't need more complexity.

[DJ]

How about Survivor voting? You vote the candidates out until only one is left.

[Dutchling]

That would actually work with a scoring system, since you'd only need to vote once and giving people eights and sevens is no longer discouraged.
(edit: you'd need to rank every candidate actually, unless I'm mistaken)

Of course, it only works if whatever you're voting for is an office and not multiple seats, but I think in the US the former only ever happens.