I side with Abd over Terry on this one. Topic is what activity should be
counted as a vote in determining what percentage of the votes were for the
leader (was it a majority?).
Agreed that overvotes count - the voter clearly intended to vote, though
the result was defective.
Agreed that blanks do not count - the voter avoided any attempt to vote.
But what of a vote for C which is for a loser aince A and B each got more
votes (assume that all three were nominees for this discussion)?
Terry would exclude these as abstentions since they dropped oujt of
the counting before the final step.
Abd and I would count them with A and B as part of total votes - C
voters, like A and B voters, were expressing their desires.
To me abstention is simply refusal to vote - blank fits where the ballot
provides for several races and a voter, while submitting the ballot, leaves
the field for this race blank.
What we suggest makes achieving a majority more difficult.
I say I am going for truth, but suggest a debate as to whether
demanding a majority is appropriate here.
Note that a majority makes more sense for Plurality elections - there
voters can not completely express their desires and C voters could vote for
A or B in a runoff.
In IRV or Score or Condorcet, desires can be more completely
expressed - so that possible value for a runoff is little to none.
DWK
On Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:48:02 -0500 Terry Bouricius wrote:
Abd wrote:
<snip>
The term "majority" as applied to elections has some very well-established
meanings. If we say that a candidate got a majority in an election,
we mean that a majority of those voting supported that candidate.
There are quibbles around the edges. What about ballots with marks on
them but the clerk can't figure out what the marks mean? Robert's
Rules are clear: that's a vote, part of the basis for a majority.
<snip>
I guess a little rehashing is needed to correct Abd's miss-stating of
Robert's Rules of Order on the basis for determining a majority. Abd seems
to be relying on RRONR description in chapter XIII on Voting, on page 402
of how to deal with "illegal votes," such as over-votes, cast by legal
voters -- they should be included in the denominator for calculating a
majority. However, on page 387 RRONR states that "majority vote" means
"more than half of the votes cast by persons legally entitled to vote,
EXCLUDING BLANKS OR ABSTENTIONS..." [emphasis added]. The question is
whether an exhausted ballot (one with no preference shown between the
finalists) in an IRV election, is an abstention or an "illegal" vote.
Since RRONR mentions "abstentions" rather than merely using the word
"blanks," it can be interpreted that there may be some way of indicating
abstention, other than with a blank ballot. I think this perfectly fits
the concept of an exhausted ballot, where the voter has abstained and
indicated no preference between remaining candidates, if the voters
favored candidates cannot win. There is room here for reasonable people to
disagree. Perhaps an organization could reasonably write bylaws to
expressly include or exclude such exhausted ballots from the denominator
in determining a majority threshold. If the organization wrote bylaws to
include exhausted ballots in the denominator, then an election could fail,
requiring some alternate procedure (or new election) to fill the office,
or the bylaws could be written to exclude exhausted ballots so that the
one election would be decisive using a reasonable definition of a
"majority vote" (using RRONR's standard definition that EXCLUDES
abstentions in determining a majority threshold.)
Terry Bouricius
...
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Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026
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