[EM] Using Borda to Set an Agenda

[Jeffrey O'Neill]

Hello,

Poor Mr. Borda was recently dissed on this list. :)  I'd like to suggest a use
of the Borda count.

What is the proper voting system to set an agenda for a meeting.  Suppose 50
proposals are submitted for consideration at a meeting which is to last eight
hours.  How do you choose which proposal should be considered first, second,
and so on until the meeting is over?

In just such a situation, I first proposed using STV.  STV was used to select
the top five.  This was then repeated to choose the next five and so on.  The
hand count was tedious and it isn't clear to me if PR is appropriate for this
situation.  Why spend time on a proposal supported only by a small group if a
majority is required for approval?

For the next meeting I sugested using a Borda count.  Intuitively, a Borda
count seems more appropriate, but I find it difficult to express the proper
principles.  Practically, it is a straightforward method for ranking all of the
proposals.

Any thoughts?
Jeff

PS. I'd also like to point out that there is some proportionality to using a
Borda Count with multi-member districts.  Let me give an example for a 3-seat
district.  Using SNTV, IRV, or STV, a candidate is guaranteed to be elected if
he or she receives at least 25% of the vote.  This is sometimes called the
"threshold of exclusion."  With Borda, the threshold of exclusion will be
higher (it is straightforward to compute it exactly) but there will still be
some proportionality.


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