Voting Systems Criteria
Comparative academic analysis of voting systems usually centers on certain voting system criteria.
Cumulative voting satisfies the monotonicity criterion, the participation criterion, the consistency criterion, and reversal symmetry. Cumulative voting does not satisfy independence of irrelevant alternatives, later-no-harm criterion nor the Condorcet criterion. It does not satisfy the plurality criterion. The 11th edition of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised states, "If it is desired to elect by mail, by plurality vote, by preferential voting, or by cumulative voting, this must be expressly stated, and necessary details of the procedure should be prescribed (see 45)." (Emphasis added). Robert's Rules describes the cumulative voting process. It provides that, "A minority group, by coordinating its effort in voting for only one candidate who is a member of the group, may be able to secure the election of that candidate as a minority member of the board." (Emphasis added). Thus, cumulative voting, when permitted, is a right to accumulate or stack votes but not a guarantee that this stacking will meet or override other election criteria such as a majority vote or majority present.
Read more about this topic: Cumulative Voting
Famous quotes containing the words voting, systems and/or criteria:
“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We have done scant justice to the reasonableness of cannibalism. There are in fact so many and such excellent motives possible to it that mankind has never been able to fit all of them into one universal scheme, and has accordingly contrived various diverse and contradictory systems the better to display its virtues.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)
“There are ... two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system. On the one hand those rules of behavior which are valid according to the system’s ultimate criteria of validity must be generally obeyed, and on the other hand, its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behavior by its officials.”
—H.L.A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus)