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flo's avatar

Why is there only "yes" or "no" when it comes to voting let's say speed limit?

Asked by flo (13313points) October 28th, 2017

Why is there only “yes” or “no” when it comes to voting let’s say speed limit, or whatever.
Let’s say the proposed bill is to lower the speed limit in a school zone. If there are 3 opposition parties, and one of them wants it to stay what it is, one wants to to be lower that the proposed number. Why is there only yes to the proposed bill or no to the proposed bill?

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12 Answers

Zaku's avatar

In the case of voting for laws, it’s because the established form of such votes, they are votes on proposals for complete written laws, and it’s a vote on whether to accept the law in that form or not. If yes, that becomes law, if not, it doesn’t.

What are you thinking would be another thing to vote, and what would the result be?

(I’m not saying it’s an ideal system. It isn’t. And it tends to get abused mightily, both when it’s a public referendum, and when it’s a bill before a legislature. I can think of various alternatives that could be improvements, but I’m curious what you’re thinking of as an alternative.)

imrainmaker's avatar

Even if the third party wants to have the same speed limit it can still say no to the bill which is proposing to increase it or decrease it as per example given by you. That should serve the purpose. Don’t you think so?

Jeruba's avatar

A vote is not a discussion or negotiation. You’re supposed to have the debate first and then take a vote that can be acted upon. “Yes” and “no” are clear-cut and unambiguous. If all options were open when voting time came, nothing would ever get done.

zenvelo's avatar

Because in most cases a majority of people will disagree with the outcome that gets the most votes.

Suppose a vote of three choices where 40% vote for A, 30% vote for B, and 30% vote C. Clearly, more people want A than either of the two others. So A wins, but 60% of the people are unhappy.

A binary vote at least decides a majority one way or the other.

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flo's avatar

It’s just misleading when 60 percent don’t want option A.
So they could say what is the speed limit you want in a school zone? 30, 25 or 35? The number that gets the most votes.

zenvelo's avatar

That’s why that kind of stuff is decided by a legislature. Never would a majority be happy with the outcome of a vote over three different speed limits.

flo's avatar

@zenvelo I don’t understand.

zenvelo's avatar

@flo

Let’s say the vote is a nearly even split, 37% want the speed limit set at 25 mph. 34% vote for it to be 30 mph. 29% vote for it to be 35 mph.

If you make it 25 after the vote, 63% will think it is too low and be unhappy. But it got the most votes!

flo's avatar

Okay one detail that needed to be in the OP: Let’s say the government lower than the current number, and one of the parties wants it even lower, so the no is not really a no like the other party that wants it higher, which is really a no

flo's avatar

….I mean “Let’s say the government wants to it lower than the current number”

flo's avatar

1st opposition party:...Yes (our partiy is with the government’s idea) but it should be even lower than the proposed number
and
2nd opposition party: It should be higher that the current number
are opposites of each other, and yet they get lumped together.

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