Re: P1788/M0024.03:RoundedOperations: PLEASE VOTE
> In Wisconsin last February, ...
I remember... but my point was not so much about the tactic of
preventing a quorum -- it was about the fact that NO votes can
be effective YES votes when they lead to a quorum. (These are
of course related issues.)
Ideally a NO vote should REDUCE the probability of passing,
just as a YES vote should increase that probability.
At this point, people hoping that the motion won't pass can simply
sit back and hope nobody else votes (either way). Of course, that
hope could be dashed by a few late votes. If it were known that
there there are many potential NO voters, they could avoid that
calamity by voting en masse to drown out the early YES votes --
but if they fail to reach that point by the cutoff date they will
effectively have voted YES (because quorum will have been reached).
Let's assume that among all potential voters there is a fixed
proportion of YES, NO and DON'T_CARE opinions. How can those
proportions be captured? We need (YES > NO) AND (YES+NO > QUORUM)
to pass the motion. Can we avoid feedback from partial tallies?
(Feedback based on comments, i.e. public encouragement to vote one way
or the other, especially with our rules that allow reconsideration, is
ok. It's feedback based on partial tallies that worries me. So how can
we get the benefits of the former without the nuisance of the latter?)
Michel.
P.S. I'm not complaining about George's publishing of the partial tallies.
Since voting is public we could all keep our own tally anyway. This
openness is GOOD in my opinion. I'm just wondering if we can address
some of the less desirable consequences...
---Sent: 2011-07-19 16:14:37 UTC