Re: Consensus vs Majority Voting
From: Sharon Villines (sharonsharonvillines.com)
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 08:50:11 -0600 (MDT)
on 7/18/2002 10:36 AM, Fred H Olson at fholson [at] cohousing.org wrote:

> Our back up voting process involves the person(s) blocking having to meet
> with a couple representatives of the majority every two weeks for three
> months. At the end of that time, if consensus hasn't been reached a 75%
> super majority vote will pass.  In th e 15 years of using this method, we
> have never voted and all blocks were resolved in two meetings at the most.
> The blocker(s) need to invest a lot of time to help advance a new
> solution. If they don't attend the resolution meetings, they lose their
> abili ty to block on that issue.

This not only sounds fair but it ensures that the majority is listening to
the minority, without the minority having to voice their objections in a
room where it is 1 to 25.

In some instances, there are two minorities, one for and one against, and a
great sea of "I don't cares" in the middle. It is usually the "I don't
cares" who are most often totally put out with the process of reaching
consensus. The "majority" is often a minority that has gained the favor of
the "I don't cares" who just want to have it over with.

At first I though the 3 months seemed like a very long time and then I
realized how long we have taken to reach consensus on several issues that
just don¹t get discussed anymore because a solution has not been worked out.


Sharon
-- 
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org


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