Range Voting: Simple and Effective

Everyone is familiar with the idea of a survey. That's all Range Voting really is. Let voters score each candidate on their fitness for office. The range can be whatever people want it to be. There is evidence that people will use at least 5 rating levels, if not 7, and there's no reason it couldn't be 10 or more.

For example, if the range were 0-9, a voter voting in the 2020 Democratic primary who is feeling progressive might vote: Bernie 9, Warren 9, Buttigieg 6, Klobuchar 6, Biden 5, Bloomberg 4. Or, if he thinks "Democratic socialist" is a losing proposition, he could vote: Biden 9, Klobuchar 8, Buttigieg 8, Bloomberg 6, Warren 4, Bernie 0.

It's simple, it's familiar. It works.

Obviously, the Love-Hate Paradox doesn't apply. The most loved candidate won't win "most hated" with the same votes. Neither does the Non-Participation Paradox. There's no way to help your candidate by not voting. Cloning doesn't help. We could add twenty progressive candidates, it won't give Bernie the slightest edge. There's no such thing as a Spoiler, because my vote for any candidate doesn't reduce my vote for any other candidate. Even more than Borda, it favors candidates with broad appeal, rather than those that will energize a particular faction.

Remember this election?

votes	1st place	2nd place	3rd place
9	Biden	Warren	Sanders
8	Sanders	Biden	Warren
7	Warren	Sanders	Biden

By Plurality, Biden wins, with 45% of the vote.
By IRV, Sanders wins, with 55% of the vote
By Borda, Biden wins, 26 to 23 to 23.

By Range voting, it could go all kinds of ways.
Maybe this:

votes
9	Biden x9	Warren x9	Sanders x4
8	Sanders x9	Biden x5	Warren x5
7	Warren x9	Sanders x6	Biden x4

Warren: 7.67  ([7x9+8x5+9x9]/24)
Sanders: 6.25 ([8x9+9x4+7x6]/24)
Biden: 6.21  ([9x9+8*5+7*4]/24)

Warren wins!

Why? Because although Borden treated the ranks 1, 2, 3 the same, that wasn't what the voters meant. Biden voters, in this scenario, merely picked him as first among equals--anyone who wasn't Sanders. Sanders voters meant the opposite. Sanders was their only good choice, and if they didn't get Sanders they didn't really care who they got. Only the Warren voters really saw a clear 1, 2, 3 ranking.

Only Range voting captures this situation. Range voting comes closer than any other approach to reflecting how voters really feel. It doesn't invite gaming the system, and it makes clear, simple sense.

Technical points

Whatever the top of the range is, the bottom of the range should be 0, not 1. After only a few years teaching, I learned that no matter what the directions say, if you ask people to score something 5 for your favorite and 1 for your least favorite, somebody is going to use 1 for first place. Tell them to score 1 for first, and someone will score 5 for best. But if the score is 0-4 instead of 1-5, nobody will use 0 for their favorite.

Similarly, while it makes mathematical sense to include negative numbers, so you can have 0 for "I don't care" and -5 for "Worst possible candidate," it isn't practical. Not all voters really understand negative numbers. Not all voters can clearly see that minus sign. We want a system that won't encourage people to make mistakes.

The One Catch

The one real issue with Range voting is what to do with write-ins and other little known candidates. Since, with Range voting, hopeless campaigns do not penalize the competitors, there is likely to be an increase in the number of candidates. There are two basic options:

Treat blanks as 0. Everyone who doesn't vote for a candidate votes 0. This has a downside: it is almost impossible to win on a write-in. Even if you get 51% writing you in for 9 out of 9, you'll average 4.59, and lose to the guy for whom 40% scored 8 and 60% scored 3 (average 5.00). This is because a blank is equivalent to a vote of "worst possible." Although most people thought the second candidate was poor, they thought he was not nearly as bad as half the people apparently felt about the other guy.

Average only the voters who vote on a candidate. Blanks count neither for you or against you. The downside of this it makes it impossible to lose as a write-in. If you're the only person who votes for you, and you give yourself maximum points, you win.

One solution to this dilemma is to use the second solution, but establish a quorum rule. You must get a certain minimum number of votes, or sum of scores, before your average counts. One suggested quorum rule is that you must receive a sum of scores that is at least 50% of the highest sum of scores. Relating the quorum to the highest total rather than establishing a fixed number prevents a situation in which no candidate receives a quorum.

Another solution is to establish a certain "neutral value" instead of 0 for no vote. On a scale of 0-9, a value of 4 is just below the middle. One could make a case to use 3 instead, since being unknown to many voters is a reason to not choose a candidate. Using 4, my 51% 9 of 9 candidate would average 6.55. Even using 3, he would score 6.06--maybe not a winning total, but well above my 8-3 split decision.This makes sense. If everyone who knows candidate A thinks he is perfect, even if only half the people know him, wouldn't he be a better choice than candidate B, whom everyone knows, and most don't particularly like?

There is, also, a self-limiting aspect of this dilemma. My 51% 9 of 9 candidate is just about impossible in any moderate-profile election. If half the voters think a candidate is perfect, the other half of voters will have heard of him, and formed an opinion. This will only come up for down-ballot votes, for offices such as Justice of the Peace.

One Person, One Vote

Somebody's going to say it, so I will. Because Range Voting allows me to, for instance, vote 9 of 9 for both Bernie and Warren, haven't I voted twice? Isn't that unfair? Well, no. First off, there's nothing "unfair" about using a tool that everyone as equal access to. Moderate Democrats can vote 9 of 9 for Biden and Bloomberg just as easily. But the principle of "One Person, One Vote" doesn't mean you can only have a say about one candidate. It means I express one opinion, and it counts the same as your opinion. My opinion could be "Bernie is the best candidate" or it could be "Bernie and Warren are the best candidates" or it could be "Bernie 9, Warren 8, Pete 6, Amy 6, etc." Your opinion would count the same.

By contrast, the electoral college completely invalidates "One Person, One Vote." By most every projection of the 2020 election at this time, Donald Trump cannot win if Republicans do not win Florida. This means, essentially, that the votes of people in Florida are crucial. By contrast, in no projection of the 2020 election ever are Vermont's 3 electors meaningful. If Democrats do so poorly that there is even a chance of Vermont going Republican, Trump will have won in a landslide approaching that of Reagan in 1984. The only votes that matter under our current electoral system are the votes that edge one candidate ahead of the others. Whether one wins Florida 40% to 39% to 21%, or one wins Florida 95% to 5%, it's all the same. Voters in most of the country, states like California, New York, and Texas, to say nothing of Vermont and Montana, are essentially waiting around to see what voters in "battleground states" are going to do.

Even without the electoral college, range voting is superior to plurality voting under the principle of "One Person, One Vote." If you vote Jill Stein, when the votes Republican vs. Democrat are totaled, your vote has no impact. Essentially, if you want to show support for a minor candidate, you must sacrifice your choice of winner. Range voting allows ALL voters to have their opinions of the competitive candidates equally considered, regardless of any opinions of minor candidates.

Conclusion

Range voting is clearly superior to other methods of determining the intent of voters. It is the one system that lets voters express their true opinion of the fitness of a candidate for office--uncolored by considerations of electability. It is not subject to electoral gaming, spoiler candidates, or vote splitting. It is easily understood and easily implemented.

Think about it: you could vote your choice, with the whole question of "but can he win?" completely taken away. You wouldn't have to guess: the election itself would determine who could win the election. I can't think of anything--other than the overturning of Citizens United--that would go further toward restoring confidence in American elections.