And Billytea - I was making a hypothetical case. The Australian system has the possiblity of requiring strategic voting in close races.

Yeah, so more like the Amanda/Bill/Carol/Doug thing? I was a bit confused by the use of a real-world eg, because the gap between Bush/Gore and the other candidates meant strategic voting wouldn't have affected that election. The Australian system would've boiled down to "Who do you like better: Bush or Gore?"

(Not for your benefit, I know you understand that.)

And see my argument above; I don't think simple majority does rule out the Australian system or Condercet system. At most it rules out the Borda system (which I don't favor anyway) and I think I made a very strong case that it does not rule out that.

I think you're probably right, though is it has some particular meaning in the US voting system and that's how most people read it, it may go the other way. In any case, I also agree that this can all wait until after we see what the vote result is. (I just like talking about the Australian system, really.)

Cindy I was not accusing you of conning. I was making a strong argument against a particular interpetation. And unfortunately it is now relevent because an argument is being made that voting for a simple majority rules out certain possiblilties that I don[t think it does. I think any counting system in which any option that wins 50%+1 wins the vote (providing any quorum requirements are met) , is allowed under simple majority. Simple does not mean (uncomplicated, but 50%+1. I'll shut up now, but I honestly don't think anything I said was actually sickening. And please, i was not accusing you of conning us - I was pointing out the problems with a particular interpetation - it was a reduction absurdum. If you interpet it this way, Cindy conned us. Cindy conning us is aburd. Therefor that interpetation is not correct.

The only conning I did is if "simple majority" means something completely different than "the side with the most votes wins, even if it's 2 votes to 1."

I don't know if it's good or bad to re-state some fundamentals here but just for the record -- yes, Cindy "simple majority" does mean "the side with the most votes wins" but we're also discussing another issue about whether three votes in total is enough.

If 100 people vote, then a simple majority is 51 votes or more. More than half.

But what we're also going to have to sort out is, what if 100 people don't vote?

Is a vote in which ten people take part valid?

So the majority issue is, would fifty-one out of 100 be enough, or would we require 66 or 75 out of a hundred?

The voter turnout issue is, how many votes in total do we need?

Here I go interpreting things again, but--

What Cindy was saying and I agree with is that we don't need and probably shouldn't talk about HOW to vote right now until the votes for this are counted and we know we are going to vote. We're getting ahead of ourselves.

This is probably why we need a separate discussion thread.

Hey Maya, welcome and that's very interesting. Why go back to lurking now?

Unless someone argues that a voting for simple majority rules out preference voting. Because that would make a big difference in how some of us vote.

Unless someone argues that a voting for simple majority rules out preference voting. Because that would make a big difference in how some of us vote.

Yes. I agree. Except the complicated voting procedures are making my head hurt!

On the other hand, you can require a minimum number of "yes" votes -- say 10 for the sake of this examples -- for any change, in addition to requiring a majority (or super-majority, such as 60%).

Good thinking Maya. And welcome to the conversation.

You know, I had foolishly thought that this voting idea was going to make things less complex. Now I'm thinking that, even if it passes, I'm never gonna vote because I don't understand half of these counting/voting/whatever methods.

I hear you, Kristen. I think we should choose whatever has the least math. No, strike that. No math. Arithmetic only, and not even too much of that.