2026-03 AERC reflections

In February 2004, I did a role-play on consensus in Belfast City Council for the Policy and Resources Committee.  And I was successful: they achieved consensus, well, sort of.  Basically, 'these'uns' did not want to be in consensus with 'them'uns,' and vice versa, so there was a consensus against consensus.

And today, 20-odd years later, with power-sharing and all, little has changed.  Some noted tht the culture of all concerned is a bit negative; well of course it is, that's what often happens with majority voting, no matter what sort is used.  Oddly, however, lots of academics and journalists etc. also act as if democratic decisions have to be taken in binary ballots, even though multi-option voting has been around for 1,900 years, and preferential voting for 600.  Strange.  

2026-02 AERC, full talk (see 2026-01)

Thank you very much for today’s invitation to the de Borda Institute, and, as my presentation will make clear, my thanks must also go to the late Professor Elizabeth Meehan of Queen’s University, the late Dr. John Robb of the New Ireland Group and

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2026-01 Stormont AERC (see 2026-02)

The de Borda presentation to the Assembly Executive Review Committee took place on 13.01.2026.

Majority rule may be fine.  But a majority opinion cannot be identified in a majority vote, or even a series of majority votes.  So why is everybody talking about simple, weighted or consociational majority votes, as if they are accurate?  Today's presentation shows  -  no, proves  -  that majority voting is ancient and hopelessly inadequate.

1.   A singleton majority vote  -  "Option X, yes or no?"  -  cannot identify a collective opinion, because those who vote 'no' are not even stating their (positive) opinion.

2.   A pairing  -  "Option X or Y?"  -  is ok, if and only if the two options, X and Y, are a duality: eg, "Shall we drive on the left or on the right?"  In contrast, "Should the UK be in the EU or the WTO?" is not ok; it's not a duality; the UK could also be in the EEA or Customs Union, so in this (and many another instance) a multi-option ballot would be needed. 

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3.   Many complain, the Assembly 'culture' is negative.  But, with majority voting, of course it is!  Power-sharing, and decision-sharing, would best be effected in a preferential ballot: see 2026-02.

2025-36 Season's Greetings

                     Twixt East and West, there is the Twain.

  

                              Last year, sat in a bumpy bus

                              From Dharamshala, India, 

                              I turned to China’s Shangri-La, 

                              In search of Asia’s consensus.

 

                            Shǎo shù fú cóng duō shù,* said they

                              In Mandarin, (such is their way).

                              So in a word, assume we may,

                              They’re just like us: it’s yeah or nay! 

 

                              But at another altitude

                              They have a different attitude:

                              Ask ‘yīn’ or ‘yáng’?  Oh that’s crazy: 

                              It’s not a duality!

 

                              And years ago, up near the sky,

                              Tibetan monks were heard to sigh,

                              “To argue thus: ’This right, that wrong?’

                              Is not the state of a buddha.”

 

                              “That doesn’t rhyme!”  I hear you shout,

                              So doubtless I, to my redoubt

                              Must now return, to western shores,

                              Wishing you all, Happy Christmas. 

 

 

 

*           The minority    obeys     the majority:

                   少数            服从            多数 

                 shǎoshù      fúcóng        duōshù。

 

I heard this saying in China, as often as on western shores, one hears, ‘Democracy is majority rule.’  

2025-35 Belgium, The Netherlands

Now in touch with the Dutch 'informateur' on using a matrix vote to elect an all-party - (without Geert Wilders' lot) - administration.  Watch this space...

2025-34 UKRAINE, in INNATE (1st Dec)

The land is flat. It stretches for miles. And many...

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2025-33 CRC on Consensus 5th Dec

Majority rule - one lot wins everything, while the other lot loses everything - came to dominate politics, long after the Greeks devised majority voting, some 2,500 years ago. There were no political parties in those old days, so anyone - (men only, I’m afraid) - could vote with a neighbour today, and against him tomorrow, without the two

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2035-32 UKRAINE and Mitteleuropa

Peace Treaty.      A ‘Mitteleuropa’ plan.

1.     Crimea under joint, triple or UN authority, its local administration based, not on majority voting, but on multi-optional, preferential decision-making.

2.     All other pre-2014 borders to be recognised.  Russian forces to be withdrawn from Donbas, etc., Ukrainian forces from Russia.

3.    Mitteleuropa or Middle-Europe to be neutral: from Finland and the Baltic States, via Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary, to Ukraine, Moldova and the Balkans, all to be non-nuclear and not in NATO, but if individually desired in the EU.

PS.      In Ukraine's 1991 referendum, every oblast voted for independence by 80% or more... except Crimea, 54%.

2025-31 Letter from Ukraine: another binary!

Majority rule - one lot wins everything, while the other lot loses everything - came to dominate politics, long after the Greeks devised majority voting, some 2,500 years ago. There were no political parties in those old days, so anyone - (men only, I’m afraid) - could vote with a neighbour today, and against him tomorrow, without

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2025-30 Ukraine: An on-line debate + decision

18th November, in the National University, “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy,’ Kiev, everyone was on-line, and so was the vote! The report starts: In any post-war parliament, a consensus may be

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