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.)
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