Looking for feedback on weighted voting algorithm

[Martin A. Brown]

Greetings Justin,

>    score = sum_of_votes/num_of_votes

>votes = [(72, 4), (96, 3), (48, 2), (53, 1), (26, 4), (31, 3), (68, 2), (91, 1)]

>Specifically, I'm wondering if this is a good algorithm for 
>weighted voting. Essentially a vote is weighted by the number of 
>votes it counts as. I realize that this is an extremely simple 
>algorithm, but I was wondering if anyone had suggestions on how to 
>improve it.

I snipped most of your code.  I don't see anything wrong with your 
overall approach.  I will make one suggestion: watch out for 
DivisionByZero.

    try:
        score = sum_of_votes / num_of_votes
    except ZeroDivisionError:
        score = float('nan')

In your example data, all of the weights were integers, which means 
that a simple mean function would work, as well, if you expanded the 
votes to an alternate representation:

  votes = [72, 72, 72, 72, 96, 96, 96, 48, 48, 53, 26, 26, 26, 26,
           31, 31, 31, 68, 68, 91]

But, don't bother!

Your function can handle votes that have a float weight:

  >>> weight([(4, 1.3), (1, 1),])
  2.695652173913044

Have fun!

-Martin

-- 
Martin A. Brown
http://linux-ip.net/