Cohousing-L Mailing List: Weighted Voting [was Borda Count]

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Feb 13, 2008, at 7:19 PM, John Faust wrote:

> Voting systems were addressed in a recent Mother Jones interview on  
> voting
> fairness<http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2008/01/verdict-is-in-our%20voting-system-is-a-loser.html 
> >with
> William Poundstone. The essence of the interview is captured in the
> following exchange:

This is an excellent article and I encourage everyone to read it. It  
includes a chart of statistical measurements of the levels of  
dissatisfaction ("regrets")produced by each voting method that clearly  
demonstrates that majority voting is the worst option (which we knew)  
but that "range voting" has a very low level of dissatisfaction  
because the outcome is likely to be one of the highest choices of each  
person.

I'm convinced that on some issues it just isn't worth working toward  
consensus. We are now trying to put up a fence on the back lot. The  
options include 1 gate or two, placement of only 1 or if we have two  
and what kind of locks -- keyed on both sides or only one -- and if we  
should have the same locks on each or if we only have one, what kind  
of lock.

It took over an hour in a meeting to discuss all the options. We  
reached consensus one option but not all of them. It was just too much  
to discuss and most people had only slight preferences. We delegated  
the decision to the sub-team but they are _apparently_ having trouble  
making the decision because we still don't have a fence up and I think  
it has been 6 weeks. I haven't talked to them this time but it took  
them 5 months to agree on what options to present to the community or  
even if they should present options.

Because of fire codes we may have fewer options, but having a clear  
sense of group preferences on a weighted vote might have focused the  
decision more clearly and much faster. Larger issues on which people  
had stronger feelings were pushed off the meeting agenda because we  
needed a decision on a fence that had already been at least 4 years in  
the making.

A long message but I think a good example of when a weighted vote  
might have made everyone happier.

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