Why does everyone random vote at the start of a game?

[Flying Dutchman]

The original purpose of Random Votes was to get the day started: If everybody votes truly random, someone is likely to end up with 2 or 3 votes. That person will have to post a (Mostly CrapLogic) defence why he/she isn't scum, and people will respond to that. In other words, there is some behaviour to analyze, and something to keep the discussion going.

However, Random votes are almost never truly random. A cop will often 'random' vote his target if he found it to be guilty, and scum/mason groups will usually not vote each other randomly. (Or they will, to attempt to hide the connection!). Anyway, a good player can tell a lot from people's 'random' votes.

(The problem is that most players are hesistant to put a second or third vote up when random voting, so they 'randomly' happen to vote for someone who has no votes yet. A lot of games have this problem: Everybody will end up with exactly 1 vote, and the whole purpose of random voting is eliminated!)