Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Decision-Making Methods

[R Philip Dowds (rpdowds]

I am deeply familiar with preference ranking, since the City of Cambridge (like 
San Francisco, Ireland and other jurisdictions) relies on the STV or "Single 
Transferrable Vote" method of "Proportional Representation" — in which you vote 
on a pool of at-large candidates, in order of preference.  For more on this, go 
see FairVote.org, or contact Rob Richie.

But never mind the STV.  Here is the real, really big issue:

In electoral politics, you have X number of self-selected, self-presented 
candidates, each one of whom is a clearly, uniquely defined individual.  So far 
so good.  But in cohousing policy-making, and decision-making, the choices are 
not self-defined, distinct individuals, but rather a range of alternatives and 
options cooked up by the community.  How these discrete targets of preference 
ranking are defined is absolutely and decisively critical for the outcome.  
Let's say, for instance, that the community concern is that of better 
transportation options for all its members.  Now the community has to choose 
... something.  How that "something" is framed is critical.  For instance, the 
choice could be ...

Buy a new car for $20K, versus by a used car for $10K; or ...
Buy a new car, versus buy a new pick-up truck; or ...
Buy a used car, versus create a communal ride share hot line; or ...
Create a communal ride share hot line, versus buy into the municipal weekly van 
transport program; or ...

Well, you get the picture.  What counts is NOT the preference ranking 
methodology, but rather the framing of the choices out on the table.  Congress, 
of course, knows all this perfectly well, which is why controlling the agenda, 
and controlling what is and is not allowed out of Committee, are the major 
political battles at the federal level.  Additionally, preference voting makes 
no sense unless you have more candidates than slots — e.g, a circumstance where 
you have five options for three slots, or some other constraint context.  If 
somehow your community has the resources for it all — new car, new pick-up, hot 
line, van transport, etc — then preference ranking is unimportant.  This may 
sound silly and obvious — but it is not impossible to delimit the choices to a 
set which can be readily agreed to by all parties.  Win-win, yes?  A tremendous 
amount of political life is devoted to EXCLUDING the options that represent 
tough choices.  (This is not a plus.)

RPD

On Apr 20, 2012, at 8:33 AM, Sharon Villines wrote:

> We tend to think of decision-making as authority, majority, or consensus. 
> There are other alternatives, my favorite being preference ranking — usually 
> known as five-stars or the 1-10 ranking used in ice skating competitions.