Hi folks, what do you think of the following procedure for introducing, amending, and voting upon proposals? (also, are you aware of any other place that ideas on parliamentary procedure may be submitted for feedback and peer review?) Here's the procedure. There are three phases. In the first phase, alternative Proposals are introduced and debated and amended. A proposal must have 1/3 support to be introduced, and a vote of 2/3s is required to amend. In the second phase, each person votes either +0, +1, or +2 on each proposal, and one proposal is selected. In the third phase, each person votes Yes or No on that proposal. In more detail: In order to introduce a new Proposal, a minority of at least 1/3 of the votes must be in support of the introduction of the Proposal (this can be measured by voting, or by the new Proposal coming with an attached list of initial supporters, or, in a small enough group, by calling for a second for the proposal (that assumes that the threshold is changed to be lower than 1/3)). The proposal is debated (there may be rules for speaking in debate, but this is out of scope here). During debate, alternatives Proposals may be introduced. Any alternative must also be supported by 1/3 of the votes. Any Proposal may be killed or amended by a vote of >=2/3s. The original Proposal is just another alternative (and may be killed). If all Proposals are killed, the procedure terminates and no action is taken by the assembly. After debate is finished, there is a vote between Proposals (using a variant of Score Voting). Each voter may give a score of either +0, +1, or +2 to each of the Proposals. The scores for each Proposal are summed, and the Proposal with the most votes is the provisional winner. In the event of a tie, the vote is repeated two more times between the tieing Proposals, and if there is still a tie, no Proposal wins and the matter is put aside until some future time. Finally there is a Yes/No vote on the provisional winner. In the event of a tie, No wins. some comments: * the restriction of the ballots to +0, +1, +2 is not essential; it is essential, however, that some spoiler-free voting method (such as Score Voting) is used at the end * amending a proposal is conceptually identical to introducing a new replacement proposal and then killing the old one, so it is not an accident that the 1/3 to introduce and the 2/3s to kill sum to 1; however these numbers could be changed * using this method, a minority faction with 1/3 or more support could annoy everyone else by introducing an arbitrarily large number of proposals. Perhaps some limits on how many proposals may be introduced (or how quickly they can be introduced) would be a good idea, i'm not sure; but on the other hand the above procedure is spoiler-free, which is nice. My guess is that even without any additional limits there, this procedure is workable in most contexts. * if the rules of debate allow a call for a vote to amend or kill any proposal at any time, that could be a lot of voting during debate -- some limits may be a good idea there. My guess is that even without any additional limits there, aside from whatever limits on speaking time are usually in effect, this procedure is workable in most contexts. (thanks to my friend T.D. for noticing both this issue, and the one in the previous bullet point) * can you think of other issues that strategic voters could cause in a group using this procedure? * my procedure should be compared to what i call the 'traditional procedure for proposal introduction and amendment', which is as follows: a Proposal is initially introduced. During debate, this Proposal may be amended by a simple majority vote. After debate is finished, there is a Yes/No vote on the final Proposal, as amended. The primary difference between my procedure and the traditional procedure is that in the traditional procedure, at most two proposals are under discussion at any given time, whereas in my procedure all of the proposals are debated together and then voted on at the end. * due to the restriction of score ballots to +0, +1, +2, in an in-person meeting the entire procedure could be carried out without writing anything down; the final voting could be accomplished by asking everyone to raise either 0, 1, or 2 hands for each Proposal, and then by asking for a final Yes/No vote (with each person raising 1 hand or none). * if the assembly is using written voting and doesn't want to spend the time to have both a Score Voting round and then also a final Yes/No vote, they could have "None of The Above" as an automatic/required psuedo-proposal in the Score Voting round, and then have an instant runoff beween the provisonal winner and None of the Above; the number of ballots strictly preferring the provisional winner to None of the Above are counted as instant runoff votes in favor of the provisonal winner, and then number of ballots strictly preferring None of the Above to the provisional winner are counted as instant runoff votes in favor of None of The Above, and these instant runoff voting sums are compared and the greater one wins. If None of the Above is the winner, or if the final vote is tied, then no action is taken (this is like No winning); otherwise the winning Proposal is considered to have been voted for and passed (this is like Yes winning). This avoids an additional round of voting but the results may not be as good as with a real final Yes/No vote. * are you aware of similar procedures that i should learn about? * what is your opinion on my procedure? thanks, bayle