Re:Alameda County admits tallying error in ranked choice vot...
by godelski on Saturday December 31, 2022 @04:45PM
(#34201090)
> Even though it may be mathematically equivalent, I think the psychological appeal is important to motivate people to vote at all, if not think clearly about how they vote, and do it honestly and wisely.
I agree with you here, maybe I did not articulate my previous comment correctly to reflect this.
Human factors are important -- remember the Butterfly Ballots of the 2000 elections!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidentia...
I think that 0 being "don't care" and negative numbers being negative percentages is easier to grasp and more balanced and granular than (3) being neutral. Even -3 to 3 would be better than 1 to 7.
Voting "A: -100%, B: -100%, C: -100%" weights each candidate the same as "A: 0%, B: 0%, C: 0%" the same as "A: 100%, B: 100%, C: 100%", but as you said, it's useful to get an overall count of the voters' absolute satisfaction with each candidate.
A popular positively winning candidate would have a more legitimate claim to a mandate, and the lesser of two evils candidates would be branded as such.