When replying to Lomax's Approval example, I was influenced by the fact that he spoke of "inverting" to get utilities from distances. That made it sound as if distances are reciprocal utilities. Of course one could mean whichever they wanted to by distances: Reciprocal utilities or negative utilities (where distance is disutility)
But the latter interpretation--distance as disutility, negative utility--seems more in keeping with what we mean by candidate distance. If a candidate is very far away, surely we consider that to be more than a zero. Isn't it more of a big disutility? Anyway, by that interpretation of Lomax's distances in his example, yes the voter he referred to should approve the Green too, in addition to the Democrat. But that's a voter who, himself, is nearly a Green. Anyway, that discussion doesn't change the overall import of what I've said. Mike Ossipoff ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
