Kathy Dopp wrote: <snip> since "abstentions or blanks" are from those who have not voted. <snip>
I believe my interpretation of Robert's Rules of Order is correct. In order for a ballot being reviewed by a teller to be "blank," and thus excluded from the majority threshold calculation, as directed by Robert's Rule of order, the voter must certainly have submitted a ballot paper. RRONR is clearly not referring to hypothetical ballots from those members of an association who did not submit a ballot at all. Those who do not submit a ballot clearly did not vote, but those who cast ballots may abstain or leave the ballot blank, and thus not have their ballots included when calculating the majority threshold. The only question is whether an exhausted ballot should be interpreted as abstaining on the question of which finalist should win, or if that ballot should be interpreted as an "illegal vote," which RRONR says should be included in calculating the majority threshold. One can think of the ranked ballot as a series of questions about pairwise contests...not unlike the way a Condorcet ballot is viewed... one of the questions could be IF the race comes down to a final runoff between candidate C and candidate E, which should win? The difference between IRV and Condorcet is that IRV uses a sequential algorithm to determine which candidates are finalists, while Condorcet does not reduce to "finalists" at all. However, if a voter has indicated no ranking for either C or E, that voter has effectively abstained from that particular question. Since the voter who voluntarily truncates is de facto abstaining from deciding which finalist should be elected, if the voter has indicated no preference between them, I think it is reasonable to treat this abstention as an abstention as directed by RRONR. While I agree that it may not be completely UNresonable to take the view that Abd and Kathy Dopp favor, I think it is contrary to the most usual interpretation of RRONR. Terry Bouricius ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kathy Dopp" <kathy.d...@gmail.com> To: <election-methods@lists.electorama.com> Sent: Monday, December 29, 2008 7:54 PM Subject: Re: [EM] Why I think IRV isn't a serious alternative 2 > From: "Terry Bouricius" <ter...@burlingtontelecom.net> > Subject: Re: [EM] Why I think IRV isn't a serious alternative 2 > > 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. > 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. ---------- Terry, It's difficult to know whether you are merely confused or deliberately trying to mislead, but it is clear that Abd ul's definition of majority was exactly correct when Abd ul said that: "we say that a candidate got a majority in an election, we mean that a majority of those voting supported that candidate." as that corresponds exactly with the Robert's Rules you yourself cite since "abstentions or blanks" are from those who have not voted. Fair Vote and anyone else who claims that IRV/STV produces "majority winners" in any U.S. election (where a full ranking of all candidates is never required according to U.S. law and is not even permitted in most jurisdictions) is flat-out lying and deliberately attempting to mislead the public. Majority winners has a very simple definition - a majority out of all voters who cast votes in that election contest. To redefine "majority winner" as a winner out of all voters whose ballots have not expired by the final IRV/STV counting round is just one of the many unethically misleading statements made by IRV/STV proponents. As everyone on this list knows, IRV/STV also does not solve the spoiler problem if a spoiler is simply defined (as it has been for decades) as a nonwinning candidate whose presence in the election contest changes who wins the contest. There are so many examples of provably incorrect and misleading statements being made by Fair Vote and other IRV/STV proponents, even after these proponents were amply informed of the falsity of their statements, that the only conclusion one can reasonably draw is that these IRV/STV proponents are deliberately trying to mislead the public, in which case, the avowed publicly stated goals of IRV/STV proponents must also be treated as suspect. Cheers, Kathy Dopp The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at P.O. Box 680192 Park City, UT 84068 phone 435-658-4657 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Post-Election Vote Count Audit A Short Legislative & Administrative Proposal http://electionmathematics.org//ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/Vote-Count-Audit-Bill-2009.pdf History of Confidence Election Auditing Development & Overview of Election Auditing Fundamentals http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info