A simple explanation of Range Voting.
Suppose you want to run for Doe County councilman from District 1, as a populist independent candidate. Your district is mostly GOP voters, but also has a significant percentage of Democrats. Many of the GOP voters have limited-government, populist leanings.
The GOP candidate gets 1,537 votes; the Dem gets 923 votes; and you, the independent, get a measly 137 votes. This happened because the GOP voters were afraid to waste their votes on you, possibly splitting the vote and allowing the election of the Dem candidate.
Now, two years later, there’s another election. During the interim, the Range Voting system has been installed in your county.
Now, each voter has the capability to vote for the GOP candidate…and on the same ballot can give you, the independent, a fraction of a vote…say, 0.9 or 0.8.
This time, the GOP candidate gets 1,611 votes; the Dem gets 942; and you, the populist, get 1,373 votes!
You still did not win….but now, you have become a fixture in local politics. People will take you seriously. During the coming two-year interim, you can spend your spare moments visiting people in the district and explaining to them why your ideas would be beneficial.
And if during this two-year interim, the GOP councilman makes decisions that are not popular with the constituents, this will give you additional topics to discuss with the people…possibly resulting in your winning the upcoming election!
Conclusion: Range Voting allows populist candidates, and their ideas, to remain in the public’s mind between elections….thus giving populism a permanent seat in the public square.
Note: the more widely-known ‘ranked-choice’ voting is a substandard system that is suitable only for multiple-seat districts. Used regularly since 1850, and enjoying good name recognition, it has serious drawbacks and has been deemed inferior to range voting by most political scientists.