The Age of Majority

[New Democracy]

Dear DEMOREP,

     There seems to be some misunderstanding as to which defination of
majority to use in regard to an election. You are using a form of "Age of
Majority". - and you are setting 50 as the age of majority.

     With this defination, it is true that your example has three
candidates over the "Age of Majority".

     But, we do not use that defination in regard to elections. The
defination to be applied to an election is: "a number greater than half of
a total" Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, 1976.

     And, I insist that the word "total" means all the votes in use at the
time a majority is claimed to have been reached - which may be more or less
than the number of voters we started with - it all depends on the method
used to reach a majority.

     But in your example, 60 is not a majority of 291. The majority
requirement for your example would be 146 - which is impossible for any
candidate to have - which means that Approval Voting in not a valid
election method.

Regards,
Donald Davison
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - repeat letter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

>Mr. Davidson seems not to be able to understand that there can be bare
>majorities and higher majorities.
>
>Example-- using Approval Voting (in which a voter can vote for one or more
>choices without number voting for the choices)- 100 voters
>A  45
>B  51
>C  60
>D  49
>E  30
>F  56
>
>B gets a bare majority (51), C gets the highest majority (60).
>
>As I have noted a few times, approval voting is defective in not
>distinguishing between the choices that get majorities (since such majorities
>are based on a combination of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. votes-- if number votes were
>being used).
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