Choice 1: An option which recieves more than 50 % of the vote wins.

Choice 2: Whichever option has the most votes wins

I'd like to suggest rewording this as:

Simple majority defeated higher majority on our last ballot. The only problem is, the Buffista who wrote up the ballot used an archaic definition of majority. (She also sometime uses shan't and whilst in her posts.) So, now we need to define "majority" in cases where more than two options are available to voters. We are doing this whilst blindfolded, with our hands are tied behind our backs, as we screw in a lightbulb with our teeth.

In the case where more than two choices are given, do you want whichever choice gets the most votes to win?

A yes vote signifies you want the option with the most votes to win.

A no vote signifies you think a majority (defined as 50%+1) should be required of any ballot item. How we'll arrive at a 50%+1 total is to be determined.

Oh my Gosh, ita.

Hmmm. Are we only polling the yes votes?

The above is exactly why I suggest rewording it. We don't only poll the yes votes. Given my poor wording on the first one, that's not fair to those who voted no. And we shouldn't shut out people who didn't vote before. They might now care. They might have weapons.

Most issues we come across are going to be a two choice (usually yes or no) thing, and the first ballot's results serves those fine. The only time we might come across a problem is if we have 3 or more choices on one item. This wasn't specifically asked about in our first poll. So now we're asking.

If we get more "no" answers on this, then we can proceed discussing the run-offs, vs. preferential, vs. drop it all, vs. whatever other way people want to suggest determining a 50%+1 majority.

Again, as an alternative to voting on this issue at all, I propose the following:

Any time we have a ballot question that has 3 or more possible answers, we ask (specific to that ballot question only) if people want the votes counted under the preferential method, or if they want them just counted under the most votes wins method. Then you have them rank their choices on the actual issue, in case the preferential method is chosen for that poll. The question of preferential vs. most votes would only ever count on the ballot it's on. It wouldn't be binding on other votes.

Hypothetically, there could be some issues where we don't care enough for preferential, and other issues where we'll really want it. To me, this seems like the most casual way to go. We're never locked into either method, except on a poll by poll basis.

Longer is not better. Seriously.

We're trying to clarify "majority" as it applies to multiple choices.

Would you prefer:

1. No winner is declared unless one faction gets more than 50% of the vote?

Under this plan, 10 A, 5 B, 4 C means that C wins; 9A, 5B, 4C means that nobody wins and we have to either revote or use preference voting.

2. The faction with the largest number of votes always wins. 5A, 4B, 4C means that A wins.

Cindy -- I love the first paragraph because it adds Buffista-esque touch to the proceedings. I still think my clarifications are important though, and for that reason I think we should stick with my wording for the two choices.

Betsy - I don't understand yours at all. Jon, I will go re-read. t /skim confession.

Jon-- can you repost the lastest wording?

Under this plan, 10 A, 5 B, 4 C means that C wins;

Errr...I know I'm bad at math, but how does the lowest vote win? I thought I understood and now I am totally lost again.

Adding in Cindy's first paragraph, it reads as follows:

Simple majority defeated higher majority on our last ballot. The only problem is, the Buffista who wrote up the ballot used an archaic definition of majority. (She also sometime uses shan't and whilst in her posts.) So, now we need to define "majority" in cases where more than two options are available to voters. We are doing this whilst blindfolded, with our hands are tied behind our backs, as we screw in a lightbulb with our teeth.

What do you think a "simple majority" means and how would you like it applied to determine future votes?

Choice 1: An option which receives more than 50% of the vote wins.

Choice 2: Whichever option has the most votes wins.

Choice 1 means that in the rare cases where a ballot question has more than two choices, there will need to be runoff ballots, or you will have to vote preferentially, or we will decide that the vote fails if no choice initially gets 50%. We will decide this either vote by vote, or else there will be another vote where this gets decided for all future ballots.

Choice 2 means that a choice could win even though it received only a small percentage of the total votes cast. For example, if there are five choices that receive 22%, 21%, 20%, 19%, 18%, the choice that received 22% would win with no further balloting.

It's like when NPR runs a story on the Middle East and they get letters from Israeli and Palestinian supporters each claiming the story was baised toward the other side. :)

That doesn't mean there wasn't a bias one way or the other. That's all I'm going to say about this innocuously-meant comment.

Jon - I agree with Connie that the language seems leading. Also, I don't want to see the discussion defined in the ballot. Some wonderchild could come in here tomorrow with a suggestion that will blow our socks off, and I don't think we can put in every suggestion people might have. That's discussion business, not voting business.

I'd like to point out to everyone too, that higher majority wasn't defeated unfairly for most of our purposes. In other words, in a two option question, it was defeated fairly. Now we are refining the process for questions that have 3 or more options.