[EM] Why Robert's Rules is relevant to this list

[RLSuter at aol.com]

James Gilmour writes;

>I think it
>helpful to distinguish between electing a single winner from three
>candidates and making one decision when presented with three
>options.  Choosing the best single winner is the toughest task in
>electoral science and I'll leave it to further discussion on this list. 
>But I would recommend NOT using any form of multi-option vote
>to decide among three options for action if this can be avoided.

Just a few comments. Granted it's a tough task, but is it
really tougher than others -- e.g., the task of selecting a group of
people who will adequately represent all citizens of a nation or all
members of an organization and are highly likely to make good
and fair decisions? How about the task of choosing judges and
juries? Aren't these and others all more or less equally tough?

Second, there are at least some multi-option decisions that are very
similar to multi-candidate elections, such as choosing the best
name for a new product or program or the best headquarters
location for a new organization. In these cases, it is very likely
that there will be three or more nominations.

Third, I wish I could be more certain your example of no change,
change to A, or change to B is the kind of multi-option decision
most likely to arise. It seems to me that if multi-option decisions
were explicitly welcomed and there were accepted means for
dealing with different kinds of them (e.g., approval voting for those
of relatively minor importance and some variation of condorcet
for those of relatively major importance), then the number of
options routinely proposed and given serious consideration
would increase and there would be more multi-option votes.

On the other hand, there are certainly other ways of dealing
with such situations, such as discussions aimed at "whittling
down" the number, ideally to one best option, which would
make it unnecessary to vote at all. The ideal outcome of any
collective decisionmaking process is unanimous agreement
and therefore no need for a vote. The problem is that often
there is very limited time for discussion and a decision must
be made. In those cases, voting is needed.

>Perhaps the percentage of parliamentarians who are well informed
>about voting methods is much higher than you suggest  - they just
>don't want the system changed!!  Ignorance abounds here in the
>UK too, but some of the most vociferous opponents of voting
>reform do understand the different systems very well.  They want
>to keep the present biased, unfair, undemocratic systems because
>they do rather well out of them most of the time.

You may be right that the percentage is much higher than I guessed.
Perhaps it is also much higher in the UK than in the US. I wish
there were better information about this.

In any case, it seems to me that the strongest opponents of
introducing new voting methods will be politically motivated politicians
and political activists rather than professional parliamentarians.
As neutral advisors seeking ways to enable meetings to be
conducted as well and fairly as possible, it seems to me that
the latter would favor any changes that would be likely to make
for better meetings and better decisions. That's why I suggested
targeting them and civics and political science instructors rather
than politicians as the first step in an effort to promote wider
use of better voting methods.

-Ralph Suter