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I think we should consider allowing user's own vote to count. This would be more important on smaller meta sites where one vote is be a much larger percentage of votes cast. There would be the following condition:

  • Limited to meta proposals tagged "feature-request"
  • There would be no change in own rep points

"But doesn't that just change the number?"

Well, yes...assuming that the person making the proposal is in favour of it.

In this grand democratic system we should all be open to being swayed by a good argument and might eventually want to downvote a proposal that we made.

Alternatively we might want to put something to a vote that keeps coming up in discussion/comments, but are not ourselves in favour of it. (either neutral or opposed).

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Voting on meta is great. It's a fast, easy-to-read indicator of how folks perceive a given post.

But it's no substitute for actually reading the post, reading the rebuttals to the post, taking time to consider them and potentially leaving your own thoughts.

Changing your vote in response to a good, well-reasoned argument is great too - editing your post to reflect your intellectual growth is even better.

So if you make a suggestion on meta and someone convinces you that it's a bad idea - or, for that matter, circumstances change and you find new justifications in support of your idea - just edit the suggestion to reflect this. Future visitors who care enough to read the full discussion will thank you.

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    "edit the suggestion to reflect this" -- but that would not reset the votes. I think that would be quite confusing, unless it's just a note on top explaining a bit without changing the rest of the post.
    – Arjan
    Sep 13, 2014 at 17:44
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    @Arjan, again, I think the point is that the votes aren't the sole arbitrers of whether the proposal is good or not. It's the content that really matters. Plus, once the post is edited, people can come back and change their votes. Dropping a link to the edited post in a chat room is one way to draw attention to the changes. Hope this helps.
    – jmort253
    Sep 13, 2014 at 17:56
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While editing the original suggestion to show your change of heart is a good thing, there is another way.

You could answer your own question and state your reasons for no longer supporting the feature. You should reference existing answers and comments that influenced you.

This would leave the question intact and the arguments against it. This would help future readers form their own opinion.

On the other hand, adding more evidence in favour of your proposal is best added by editing the original post.

Allowing votes on your own proposal wouldn't achieve anything useful.

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