Re: Draft proposal for resolution process changes
On Tue, 28 Sep 2021 at 13:56:21 +0200, Karsten Merker wrote:
> In this case the chair surely wouldn't vote to overrule
> themselves as that would be a completely nonsensical behaviour,
The casting vote cannot be used to select an option that is not in the
Schwartz set (loosely: it can only be used to select an option that
could have won if it had one extra vote). Suppose the TC chair wants
to paint a bike shed green, but this is unacceptable for some reason,
and we have a vote among the TC members with these options:
R: overrule the TC chair: the bike shed must be red
B: overrule the TC chair: the bike shed must be blue
Y: overrule the TC chair: the bike shed must be yellow
FD: further discussion
If the TC membership (excluding the chair in this case) has voted
R = B > FD > Y, with some members preferring R > B and an equal number
preferring B > R, so that both R and B are in the Schwartz set, then the
chair is forced to use their casting vote to overrule themselves. They
can use the casting vote to choose whether the bike shed must be red or
blue, but they cannot choose to paint it green or yellow, because those
options were not in the Schwartz set.
Also, I believe the rationale for this casting vote is the same as for
the existence of a casting vote in general: to make sure that the TC is
always able to make a decision, one way or another, and that there is
never an unresolved situation where the outcome of the vote is "there is
no decision". Even if the chair is not placed in the bizarre situation
of choosing precisely how to overrule themselves, they should still be
stating a decision.
To put that another way, if the TC is voting on options R, B, Y and
Further Discussion, we would like the outcome to be either R, B, Y
or FD. It seems bad if the outcome can, in rare cases, be a strange
indeterminate state that is distinct from FD, but is also not R, B or Y.
> - There is an excemption for the chair in the rule about having
> to abstain from the vote and the chair makes use of the casting
> vote.
In this case, the TC has (narrowly) made a decision: namely, not to
overrule the chair.
> - There is no special excemption for the chair in the rule about
> having to abstain from the vote, so the tie isn't resolved and
> as a result the TC doesn't overrule the chair.
In this case, the TC has not made any decision - we have not decided to
overrule the chair, we have not decided to decline to overrule the chair,
and we have not even decided on Further Discussion! Once we get to the
point of holding a vote, I don't think we want this to be procedurally
possible.
smcv
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