[EM] IRV vs Plurality (back to the pile count controversy)

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

Oops!

At 02:25 PM 1/23/2010, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
>If a majority is required for election, and according to accepted 
>parliamentary procedure, "majority" means more than half of all 
>non-black ballots cast.

Er, "blank." Of course we all know that in some places, it is the 
non-black votes that really count, right?

I've been for quite some time making the point that voting systems 
increase democracy as they approach or simulate the processes of 
deliberative democracy ("parliamentary procedure"), for the latter 
has centuries of common-law behind it, designed to allow peer 
communities to efficiently make decisions, with measured respect for 
the rights of minorities.

(It takes a two-thirds vote to suppress debate, as an example, in 
normal rules. I notice how often the party in the majority in the 
U.S. Senate, and its supporters, want to call for discarding cloture 
rules, which were already reduced once from two-thirds to 
three-fifths. Thus rules are there for a reason, a very long 
tradition, with serious purpose behind it, respect for the rights of 
a minority.

A method available under the rules, where the chair (the 
Vice-President, by right) rules that a motion may go to a vote, 
despite the cloture rule; presumably this would be appealed by a 
member of the minority party, and then a vote will be held, and a 
ruling of the chair requires a majority vote to overrule. This is 
legal under the rules, but was called the "nuclear option" for the 
collateral damage it would cause to collegiality and cooperation, 
because it would be a blatant evasion of the minority-protective 
cloture rule. However, for clear abuse of the rule, it remains an 
option. What's "abuse?" Whatever the chair and the majority decide it is.)