At 02:29 PM 1/3/2009, Terry Bouricius wrote:
Paul,
I am extremely versed in state legislative parliamentary procedure, as I
served ten years as a state legislator. Nearly every state uses Mason's
Manual instead of RRONR.
That's right. RRONR was based on the practice of the U.S. House of
Representatives. There are plenty of differences in detail. Every
deliberative body, as a general rule, may set its own rules governing
its deliberations. It's actually a loophole one could drive a truck
through, but, it seems, it is not *much* abused.
(The "nuclear option" in the Senate involved the presiding officer --
possibly Dick Cheney -- ruling that a simple majority was adequate to
cut off debate on consenting to a judicial appointment; since this
was contrary to the rules, on the face, presumably there would be an
appeal of the ruling to the body itself; if I'm correct, it takes a
majority to overturn the ruling of the chair, but just a simple
majority, not the 60% required for normal cloture. Needless to say,
many Senators were concerned about precedent; cloture rules are a
protection against ill-considered decisions. It's bad enough that,
not too many years ago, cloture was reduced from 2/3 to 3/5.)
The basis for calculating majorities is specific
to the situation, or constitutional provision. There are a few cases where
the basis is the entire membership (such as over-riding a veto, etc.) but
for most votes it is a majority of those present and voting -- assuming a
quorum is present.
That's right. Deliberative bodies do not normally use any voting
system other than simple majority rule, and, if I'm correct, absolute
majorities are reserved for special situations. It would not be
desirable for a veto override to be made by a minority of members,
which can happen if only a quorum is necessary. This is probably an
example of where the body is restrained by its charter, i.e., the
state constitution, which, I'd imagine, requires that absolute supermajority.
There are a few rare examples of national popular elections in which the
basis is the entire eligible population, such as some referenda in Italy,
where opponents often urge their adherents not to vote as a way of
blocking the passage of some measure (since all of the abstainers who
don't care to participate one way or the other are effectively counted as
"no" votes).
This is desirable when a measure takes away essential rights.
Otherwise it's a device for maintaining status quo, because of the
difficulty of gaining an absolute majority. However, if such a
measure is actually and seriously worthwhile, it shouldn't be that
difficult to gain an absolute majority; it is effectively a
supermajority requirement, declining in percentage as the turnout
increases, to a minimum of an absolute majority.
However the norm in governmental elections is to discount all abstainers
from the basis, regardless of the manner of their abstention.
An "abstention," however, means someone who doesn't vote on a
question. This is the only place in this post from Bouricius where he
appears to be inserting a spin.
"Regardless of the manner of their abstention" is a loophole one
could, again, drive a truck through, and, indeed, that's what
Bouricius is attempting to do. There are two questions, here, and he
will, if history is a guide, attempt to confuse them, because then
the argument he will make for the first one, which is stronger, he
can hope will rub off on the second. Debate tactic.
(1) If there is a preferential ballot, used by such a body, for an
election or for any multiple-choice question, and a winner is
determined by the rules, and members have abstained from making some
pairwise comparisons, is this an "abstention" if they have voted in
other pairwise races? It is clearly an abstention if they have voted
in none. But, if they have voted for someone, one candidate at least,
participating in the process, the usage of the term "abstention"
becomes highly problematic. It is "like" an abstention, in some ways,
but it is an "abstention" that generally represents equal-ranking
bottom, i.e., a pure "No" on the election of all those not ranked;
because the voter is utterly opposed -- one may assume by default --
to all those candidates, ranking them would imply approval of any one
of them ranked, and could create a majority, and therefore the voter
will be responsible for electing someone whom the voter might
consider to be a monstrous choice. And this is how Robert's Rules
will treat it, and Robert's Rules does consider the question. It is
not an abstention, it's a vote, and it counts in the basis for
majority. And I also think this is just plain common sense. Does
Mason's Manual even consider the question?
(2) If the ballot does not allow full ranking, and a voter has used
the available ranks, is the vote then an abstention against all other
pairs? Given that Bouricius has already stated that he doesn't
consider methods that don't allow full ranking to be ones which
"guarantee a majority," the answer is clearly "No."
Now, a constitutional issue. Suppose we set up a method which
examines all the exhausted ballots, and which determines if they have
used the available ranks, according to some standard. (This has been
tried in the U.S., and the rule was a little more complex than
requiring full ranking, it allowed truncation, but where it was
allowed depended on the number of candidates.) If a ballots does not
adequately rank the candidates, this ballot is disregarded in
determining the basis for a majority.
That is, this ballot can (more legitimately, but I still claim
incorrectly) be considered as abstaining voluntarily from the last round.
Prediction: if this is tried, it would be found unconstitutional.
Oklahoma Bucklin was found unconstitutional because it attempted to
require additional ranking beyond first rank. (Contrary to what some
propaganda about Bucklin would imply, the finding there had nothing
to do with the method itself, and a dissent in the ruling claimed,
quite cogently, that all the state court should do is to rule the
particular provision null and void; that this was not done, given
that the rule was not an essential feature of the method, but just a
wild idea someone inserted (poison pill, anyone?), indicates that,
big surprise, there are forces which don't want advanced voting
systems implemented.
Because the rule would impair the participation of those who bullet
vote, it would be, correctly, seen as an impairment of their
privilege to make unconstrained choices.
It would simply be a somewhat milder form of requiring full ranking.
A majority requirement is a fundamental part of democratic process.
It appears that it was common in early state constitutions for state
elections; in, at least, some states, election by plurality was a
*reform* that was only implemented in the 19th century. Why was it a
reform? Well, because of the difficulty of holding elections, further
process generally meant referring the decision to, say, the state
House of Representatives or equivalent. It was considered better to
keep the decision with the people. That's a highly questionable
decision, and probably represents keeping the decision with the most
easily manipulable, in some senses. Asset Voting handles this much,
much better. It leaves the decision either with the people directly,
or with those whom the people have freely chosen, without constraint,
to make it on their behalf. If we had a truly representative
Assembly, one that represents all the people with minimal compromise,
then the *original provisions would work.*
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