Finding a balanced generic neutral wording for an organization's Bylaws

[wolftune]

I'm a co-founder and Board member of an org (Snowdrift.coop to be specific) that is working out Bylaws. Here's the draft I did for the voting-related wording:

methods and means which, for cases other than binary yes/no questions, allow each voter to express support for any and all of the available options and which calculate the results in a manner accounting for all such indicated support

The goal is to lock in some very basic principles with enough flexibility that we don't have to hash out getting everyone involved right now to fully understand voting theory or take my word for it that we should just go with STAR etc. We also want it to be relatively clear and short, not a big voting-theory block of Bylaws material, at least no more than needed.

Of course, there are lots of criteria we all debate on and on. And whether voting itself is even the right way to make decisions or elect people is a valid question. But we're looking to just have a usable Bylaws so we can move forward. Perfect is the enemy of the Good.

We can still as a Board decide how voting will work outside of the Bylaws, and if we have a solid decision, we can amend the Bylaws. But the wording above obviously mandates the criteria it does, which I think blocks the worst choices from among the options that anyone in the world actually advocates for.

Thoughts?

[Marylander]

@wolftune Certainly it blocks out plurality voting, and that should be plain to see even if you do not fully understand voting theory. I would say that it also blocks out options such as IRV because IRV does not account for all indicated support, but the reasoning for that argument would not be apparent without getting into voting theory. However, that discussion can possibly wait until someone actually suggests using IRV.

[wolftune]

@Marylander Thanks for your reply. Yes, the theory of the criteria work just as you suggest. I'm also interested in feedback on the exact wording as well as on the ramifications of the policy and whether people want to advocate that we consider actually adjusting the policy itself (not just the wording).