Ranking three proposals tells us which one a person prefers, but not whether the first two are nearly tied or worlds apart. Score voting asks for ratings instead: perhaps zero to five points for each proposal. Those scores are aggregated using a rule announced before voting.
Unlike a fixed budget of dots, giving one option a high score need not leave fewer points for another. One possible rule is to compare average ratings, with a defined treatment of unrated candidates. Leaving a candidate blank must have an agreed meaning; otherwise voters cannot know whether silence counts as rejection or simply as no assessment.
Numbers do not standardize enthusiasm
A residents' group choosing public-art designs might discover that one proposal receives moderate support from almost everybody while another receives a mix of very high and very low scores. That information can be useful even before the final total is calculated.
But people use scales differently. One person's restrained four can mean the same enthusiasm as another person's five. Strategic voters may give only maximum and minimum scores, effectively turning their ballot into approvals and rejections. If the group wants discussion rather than a binding election, showing the distribution as well as the total can preserve useful disagreement. Scores produce a clear number through a chosen aggregation rule; they do not eliminate the political choice about whose preferences should count and how strongly.