Problems with Appendix A
Giving a quick read-through of Appendix A, I see several problems:
1) Every resolution that has amendments is supposed to have two votes:
A.3.1) A vote to decide which amendments to apply, including "Further
Discussion"; and A.3.2) A vote to accept or reject (or keep discussing) the
final form of the resolution.
This in my mind defeats the strength of the Condorcet voting method, which
should be able to find the best compromise out of many options. Since the
process of actually voting seems to be the largest source of grief
recently, requiring multiple formal votes on an issue should only increase
the grief.
I'd even be tempted to replace the discussion of "amendments" entirely with
"alternate proposals". The distinction being that an amendment is a change
to the original proposal, while an alternate proposal is a separate
proposal covering the same issue. This would change A.1 somewhat, as well.
2) In several places, a distinction between the proposer and the sponsors
leads to wordy work-arounds to indicate that both the proposer and sponsors
have similar powers and responsibilities (A.1.2 and A.1.3 together require
that the proposer and sponsors all agree to accept a formal amendment; A.4
is just plain messy along those lines). Sponsors do not appear to have any
powers and responsibilities that the proposer lacks. If the proposer could
be considered a sponsor, then this verbiage could be simplified.
3) The situation with the Goerzen/Towns proposals demonstrated the problem
with the Expiry section (A.5). This needs to be fixed.
4) What is the intent of A.6.3 ("All options which are Dominated by at
least one other option are discarded, and references to them in ballot
papers will be ignored.") This would seem to imply that if there is no
unambiguous winner (if the Smith Set is not singleton), then all the
options will be discarded. Obviously, that's not right.
5) A.6.8 is using "quorum" to have a strange meaning. A quorum normally
describes the minimum total number of voters, not the minimum margin of
victory.
6) Single Transferrable Vote among the Smith Set is one way to decide the
winner, but it isn't necessarily the best.
Raul Miller suggested a possible rewording of A.6 that clarifies the
current procedure, but leaves some of it's warts in place. Why not take
this opportunity to fix some of the problems while we are at it?
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