Addendum, so maybe I am arguing for only having yes/no or choose-between-two-things votes. And that we use consensus to shape things that way.

Now I'm not sure which is simplest or more clear: 50%+1 or most votes wins. I'm still kind of inclined to towards 50%+1 on the idea that without strong desire to move forward on issues, then we shouldn't be moving forward. But I could be persuaded the other way.

Still thinking about it...

From Merriam Webster, emphasis mine:

3 a : a number greater than half of a total b : the excess of a majority over the remainder of the total : MARGIN c : the preponderant quantity or share

That's where my head was.

I'm with ita and Lyra. The most.

Minimum voter turnout to validate a vote is either 10 (on the theory that we want to open the process so that voting determines most issues and any small issue gets handled this way) or 65 (because that's about half of the number of people who voted on the last issue and we want to only have votes on serious issues).

See, I still think that for this issue only having a range of choices, and letting people vote preferentially on those choices, will actually result in a better concensus choice than forcing people to choose between extreme choices like 10 and 65.

Choose Choice! (because I didn't use those words enough).

I'd be interested in seeing how many people just thought that meant "the most votes"

t raises hand

Like I said when I brought it up last week, I don't really care all that much, though.

I didn't consider when voting whether or not simple majority meant more than 50% in cases of more than two options. HOWEVER, my understanding of the discussion that preceded that item was majority vs. supermajority, and that a yes vote was just opposition to supermajority. Can we just assume that it meant no on supermajority and ignore the implication for votes with more than two options? It just seems that in a case with two interpretations, we should go with the less restrictive one-- and I see that as not also including a limitation on multiple item ballots.

See, I still think that for this issue only

I could be persuaded on this if it were clearly marked as Just This Once and there was some agreement in principle to simplicity. Not that my being persuaded is decisive, but my gut feeling is that we're kind of the in-the-beltway people of the board and it's better for us to wonk-out and produce infrequent and simple vote choices that can produce obvious results.

OK, I have to go home and I'm busy most of the evening so some final words:

Some folks don't want preferential balloting because "it's too complicated" or because they think a decision reached by a small plurality will be "good enough". I disagree. What I propose is that for this next round of voting, we try it out on the Votor Turnout" and "Seconds" questions. I will tabulate and post detailed results. If there are still complaints, we can vote on whether to ever do it again. I would just ask that we don't rule it out without trying it, because I think that some (not all, but some) of the objections will go away when folks see it in action.

I'm with ita and Lyra. The most.

Yup.

There is, however, a large disadvantage and I'm just going to keep pointing this out. It's more complicated.

I have to admit, I don't get this. I mean, yeah, if you're the vote-counter, then it's more complicated. (Though as John noted, not so complicated that you can't manage it via a simple spreadsheet.) But if you're a voter, all you need to do is rank the options. First, second, third, fourth. That's it. Count from 1 to 4 (assuming four options).

The disadvantage of the plurality of votes is that you can easily have a winner that most people don't like. In short, you can have over half the voters get shafted. It's not a system set up to deal with situations where you have more than two genuinely viable options.

Again: this is only an issue, at all, where there are more than two genuinely viable options. And it's in these cases that a plurality system can shaft over half the voters. On occasion it'll turn up the option furthest from a Buffista consensus.