06/18/02 - Let's `Sort-Out' the Candidates:

[Dave Ketchum]

On Tue, 18 Jun 2002 04:18:44 -0400 Donald E Davison wrote:

> 06/18/02 - Let's `Sort-Out' the Candidates:
> 
> Dave Ketchum, you wrote:
> "Your best choice almost certainly is to have a chairperson (as defined in
> Robert's Rules of Order (RROO)) rather than let one person be a dictator
> (even if Mislabeled as supposedly being a chairperson)."
> 
> One of the problems with Robert's Rules of Order is that they are designed
> to handle only one issue at a time.  A subscription email list can handle
> many issues at the same time without any one issue blocking action on the
> other issues.


I have nothing against email discussions for whatever they can handle 
well.  Among the exceptions are topics with deadlines that require prompt 
resolution (proper combination would be an initial email discussion and 
then a meeting to resolve whatever problems remained).

What I wrote was response to a claim that meetings can be controlled by 
dictators - I assert that RROO provides defense for the members against 
this problem (provided they choose to use it).

That an in-person meeting only handles one issue at a time is, I believe, 
appropriate to such a meeting, and not something inflicted by RROO.  That 
such a meeting might choose to set a topic aside while it handles another 
is also doable and the RROO words for this are "Lay on the table" - looked 
at from a distance this qualifies as handling multiple issues at the same 
time.

> 
> Another problem with RRO and/or usual meetings is that the members are
> regarded as a captive audience to a certain extent.  It is as if we are to
> endure others' boring speeches so that they will endure our boring speech.
> If we prove we can also make boring speeches then we are accepted.


You describe a meeting format that its members accept and you dislike. 
Obvious response is to join with others who think like you and control 
your own meeting format.

> 
> Saari wrote: `The current methods are stifling to the various members who
> have good ideas but can't bring them to a vote.'
>    Can't you see Dave, that current methods have a choke point through
> which all proposals, discussions, and votes must flow.  This is how the
> chair can control.  Not everything is able to get pass the choke point,
> there is not enough time nor capacity.  It is proper for Saari to seek
> something better.


Again, RROO gives the chair no such control.  However:
      The assembly presumably has bylaws.  These can, accidentally or on 
purpose, include most any problem the members have chosen to accept.
      The members can permit the chair to be dictator, even with no 
support for this from either RROO or the bylaws.

> 
> Dave: "NEED to consider possibility that some "members" may never get
> around to vote - what does this do to 2/3?"
> 
> Donald: It does nothing to the Two-Thirds requirement.  Forty is two-thirds
> of sixty, if some do not vote, forty is still the requirement.


Perhaps there is need for more thinking - what if 25 are on vacation from voting?
> 
> Donald: >   * Anytime a candidate receives fifty-plus-one before the
> deadline, that candidate is elected, the election is over.
> 
> Dave: "Counting current votes, or total membership?"
> 
> Donald:  The answer is `total membership', because I am writing as if the
> group has some relationship that is homogeneous, such as equal investors in
> a new company or members of a legislative body.


Proper clarification, though failure to recognize "majority" as a valid 
English word puzzles me whenever I see it.

> 
> Dave: "Plurality should be adequate for this type election."
> 
> Donald:  Plurality is only adequate for one or two candidates.  Plurality
> is not adequate for three or more candidates.  We are trying to get beyond
> plurality.  My example was about three or more candidates.


Seems to me this should be up to the voters and the election law they 
choose to use.  For some other elections I would be promoting Condorcet.

> 
> My solution for two tied leading candidates out of three or more candidates
> can also be used as a solution for when we seek a majority winner and as a
> standard to compare single winner methods.


In the case of three equally liked candidates there is no possible true 
majority winner - if you get to the appearance of a majority winner it was 
due to some voters voting against their desires.

> 
> Dave: "In case of a true tie, voters have said they care not which one of
> those tied, so anything without its own bias, such as publicly flipping a
> coin, should be adequate."
> 
> Donald:  A coin toss is not acceptable because its result was not created
> by the `bias' of the voters.


The tie was "created by the `bias' of the voters" - so I still see no 
problem with any public random resolution.
-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    http://www.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
   Dave Ketchum    108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708    607-687-5026
              Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
                    If you want peace, work for justice.

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