The most obvious is the range of allowed scores. When paper ballots and
optical-sense voting machines are used, the range of allowed scores may
need to be kept very short, for example 0-3, or -1,0,1 (as was used in
some early 2008 MSNBC polls of presidential candidates) in order to
conserve ballot space.
See Why the range 0-99? for further discussion.
The Score Voting rules can be modified as follows to allow voters to express "no opinion"
about some candidates.
Each vote
consists of a numerical score within some range (say
0 to 99)
for each candidate.
Simpler is 0 to 9 ("single digit score voting").
Voters may also indicate
"X"
or
"NO OPINION"
if they have no opinion
about a candidate.
Such votes don't affect that candidate's average.
For
Andrews
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
NO OPINION
Benson
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
NO OPINION
Carey
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
NO OPINION
Davis
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
NO OPINION
Elbert
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
NO OPINION
example,
"Andrews=9, Benson=0, Carey=3, Davis=9, Elbert=X" could be your vote
in a Score voting election, where 9 indicates best and X indicates "NO OPINION."
The candidate with the highest average
score wins... except
Candidates without a
quorum
are eliminated; a winning
candidate's total score must be at least
50% of the
sum received by any candidate.
This prevents candidates with few numerical votes (as opposed to "X"s) from winning.
(Tie-breaking)