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SPRINGER BRIEFS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE

Peter Emerson

Democratic
Decision-making
Consensus Voting for Civic
Society and Parliaments

123
SpringerBriefs in Political Science
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8871
Peter Emerson

Democratic Decision-making
Consensus Voting for Civic Society
and Parliaments

123
Peter Emerson
The de Borda Institute
Belfast, UK

ISSN 2191-5466 ISSN 2191-5474 (electronic)

SpringerBriefs in Political Science
ISBN 978-3-030-52807-2 ISBN 978-3-030-52808-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52808-9
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 To the victims of majoritarianism, everywhere;1 and not least to…

the 40 millions who died in Máo Zédōng’s anti-rightist campaign

and its consequent famine;
the 20 million + who suffered under bolshevism2 in Lenin’s and then
Stalin’s gulags;
the almost one million who were slaughtered in the genocide in
Rwanda;3
the many thousands who died in the Balkans4 and…
the Caucasus of the 1990s;
the 3000 who were killed in ‘the Troubles’ in Northern Ireland;
and
the similar number who were murdered in Kenya after the 2007
elections.

1
I mention only the conflicts of those countries in which I have travelled if not sojourned, and
whose politics I have studied.
2
The very word ‘bolshevism’ means ‘majoritarianism’.
3
The Interahamwe launched their murderous campaign with the slogan, ‘Rubanda nyamwin-
shi’—‘we are the majority’.
4
‘All the wars in the former Yugoslavia started with a referendum’. (Oslobodjenje, 7.2.1999—
author’s translation.)
Foreword

The theory of voting and its formal foundation, the social choice theory, is shot
through with negative results typically framed as incompatibilities of conditions
thought to be plausible or even essential for democratic decision-making in groups.
The best-known of such results is Arrow’s impossibility theorem that some seventy
years ago set the stage for a voluminous literature on conditions that one could
impose on reasonable voting rules. Quite a few such desiderata have been defined,
analysed and shown to be mutually incompatible. The main upshot, it is often
maintained, is then that no ideal voting rule exists. Therefore, one has to pick one’s
favourite from a set of rules that all have at least one serious flaw.
In the course of these studies, two camps of voting theorists have emerged:
(i) those emphasising pairwise majority comparisons and (ii) those focusing on the
positions of candidates in voter preferences in determining the winning candidates.
For a long time, the former camp seemed to have the upper hand in the contest
between these two if for no other reason than the intuitive idea that the majority rule
seems to capture the essence of democratic decision-making. And indeed, it makes
sense to argue that the majority rule is more democratic than the minority rule in the
sense a larger number of people get their way than in the case the minority view
would prevail.
This argument loses its intuitive appeal in settings where a small minority has a
very strong preference for the losing option, while most members of the majority
are nearly indifferent on the issue but lean ever so slightly towards the winning
option. Perhaps a theoretically more serious weakness of the argument pertains to
the fundamental ambiguity of the majority winner. This is blatantly obvious in
voting contexts where more than two alternatives are on the agenda, but the
ambiguity may present itself in the two alternative cases as well. This is illustrated
in the referendum paradox.
Suppose that a consultative referendum involving two options, say opt-in to or
opt-out from a union of states, is arranged in a country where there are—for
simplicity of the argument—just three provinces or districts each with ten million
voters. Suppose that the opinions of the voters are distributed so that in provinces 1
and 2, a clear majority of six million vs. four million prefers opt-out to opt-in,

vii
viii Foreword

whereas in province 3 all ten million voters prefer opt-in. Each province sends one
representative to the parliament, where the issue is to be finally decided. Now, the
MPs from districts 1 and 2 should, if they wish to reflect the views of the majority
of their province, vote for opt-out. A fortiori, the MP from district 3 should vote for
opt-in. So, in the parliamentary vote, the outcome is 2 to 1 for opt-out. The popular
vote, in contrast, would lead to the victory of opt-in with a 18 million–12 million
margin. So, which outcome is the majority one?
The ambiguity of the majority decision is even more transparent in some settings
involving more than two alternatives or candidates. To illustrate, consider a setting
involving three options: x, y and z along with the distribution of nine million voters
into three opinion groups so that four million prefer x to z to y, three million prefer
y to z to x and two million prefer z to y to x. Supposing that each voter votes
according to his/her preferences, x wins the first-past-the-post contest with four
million votes. It is thus the plurality winner. One could argue that the plurality
winner be elected in this case since its number of votes is larger than that of any
other alternative. Suppose, however, that—since x did not garner a majority (but
just a plurality) of votes—a plurality run-off contest is arranged between the two
largest vote-getters x and y. In the run-off, one can expect y to win, since those two
million voters whose favourite is not present in the run-off contest prefer y to x.
Hence, the former gets five million and the latter four million votes. Thus, y is the
majority winner. So, we have now two winners out of three depending on how we
interpret the notion of majority. However, the strongest case can be built for arguing
that z is the true majority winner. This argument is based on the fact that z would
win both x and y—that is, all its competitors—in separate majority comparisons,
the former with a five million—four million and the latter with a six million—three
million margin. So, depending on our definition of the majority winner each one
of the three alternatives can be regarded as the winner in the example.
The ambiguity is, however, not the only—or even the main—reason Peter
Emerson rejects the majoritarian view as the guiding principle of institutional
design. He deems the view as downright dangerous because of its built-in tendency
to evoke conflicts and to exacerbate cleavages in societies. His many travels in
conflict-ridden parts of the world have inspired him to thinking about alternative
ways of teasing out the will of the people in referendum-like situations. On the basis
of his first-hand experience and theoretical literature, he also proposes and evaluates
methods of parliamentary elections as well as of making collective choices in the
day-to-day business of government and/or of other types of assemblies.
The basic motivation of the book, conflict avoidance or mitigation, is at the same
time old and new in the voting theory literature. It is old insofar as the collective
choices are often resorted to in resolving conflicts in a peaceful manner. Sometimes,
they succeed, but quite often they also fail, especially when majority referenda are
arranged, as Emerson points out. It is new in the sense that conflict mitigation or
avoidance is seldom elevated to the status of an explicit social choice desideratum.
In Emerson’s thinking it should be. For what it is worth, I agree. It is this insight
together with the rich empirical and comparative material that makes Emerson’s
book eminently worth studying not only for those unfamiliar with the voting theory,
Foreword ix

but also for those familiar with it. By introducing the important criterion of conflict
avoidance capability, this work paves the way towards a more relevant theory of
voting. This theory puts the emphasis on giving the voters reasons to participate and
to accept outcomes that do not always coincide with their most favourite options.
This emphasis reveals, indeed, the forte of camp (ii) to which Emerson belongs.
The reader may disagree—and I gather Emerson would expect and welcome it—on
some details of the proposals advocated, but the overarching goal of the enterprise
is without any doubt a commendable one. This thought-provoking book deserves to
be widely read and discussed. As war has been said to be too important to be left
solely for the generals, the institutions of democratic governance are too important
to be left solely for the social choice theorists. Nonetheless, as generals in war, the
social choice theorists in institutional design are capable of providing essential
information about what is within the realm of the possible and what is not.

Hannu Nurmi
Professor Emeritus of Political Science
University of Turku
Turku, Finland
Preface

There is an idée fixe, pretty well everywhere: that decisions should be based on the
wishes of the majority. Even people like Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Máo Zédōng
(though voting sparingly) spoke of ‘the majority’ at length. And across the globe,
the consequences have been disastrous.
Something is not as it should be. Basically, on questions of complexity, you
cannot best identify the collective will of dozens let alone millions by asking a
simple, yes-or-no, binary question; logically, it is impossible.
Majority rule is obviously a good thing; but ‘binary majority rule’ in which
decisions are based on majority votes is often hopelessly inaccurate… and therefore
sometimes dangerous. There are, however, several ways of identifying a majority
opinion, and majority rule need not be binary.
*****
This text is a guidebook for decision-makers all, from members of the local
community association to our elected representatives in parliament. It is about
decision-making, so there’s a lot about the voting procedure, the most important
part of decision-making, and hardly anything about electoral systems… until
Chap. 7. Granted, many decision-making systems can be used as electoral systems,
such as plurality voting which is then called first-past-the-post. Nevertheless, the
text tries to distinguish between the two functions.
Having explained in Chap. 1 why win-or-lose majority voting can be at least
problematic, there is a full description of a more inclusive and more accurate
methodology of decision-making: a win-win preferential points system of voting,
and this set of decision-making rules, Chap. 2, should be enough for any chair-
person at a local AGM or the speaker in any parliament. What’s more, there is an app
to help: www.debordavote.org allows all and sundry to use this points system of
preferential voting, as and when they please.
For those who would like to understand why preferential voting is so accurate,
Chap. 3 is a reasonably detailed guide. To get a more thorough grasp of their duties,
the chair and consensors of a decision-making process should go one stage further
and read Chap. 4. The next chapter considers the benefits of consensus voting, the
biggest of which accrues from the fact that preferential points voting is

xi
xii Preface

non-majoritarian, in which case, if the international norm of democratic

decision-making were to be based on this more accurate—and therefore more
democratic—methodology, the era of binary majority rule could be at an end.
Just to round everything off, Chaps. 6 and 7 look at other voting procedures: the
former compares the more common decision-making systems, while the latter—ah,
at last—is an overview of electoral systems. Because of PR, these are far more
numerous. Now many politicians and others point out that no voting procedure is
perfect, and some quote Arrow’s impossibility theorem as the proof (Arrow 1963:
85). That might, or might not, be true (Saari 2019: 133–144), but either way, it
should not stop anyone from an overall assessment of these various methodologies,
so to identify just which systems are often erroneous, which are perhaps a little
better, and those which are good or even very good.
Finally, Annex A summarises the role of the consensors; B looks at the way
different sets of preferences may be interpreted; and C lists the way consensus
coefficients can vary. The book concludes with a glossary of all the terms used and
of course an index.

The Text

As a general rule, options are A, B, C… italicised and emboldened; there are just
two exceptions, X and Y. Persons, usually of alternate gender, are i, j, k…, and they
are italicised. While political parties are W, X, Y and Z, again italicised and
emboldened.
Most books follow the convention that numbers less than ten are spelt out in full,
while other larger quantities are in digits. Because there are so many in this text,
however, exceptions are frequent, if but for the sake of what the author hopes is
clarity. In addition—no pun intended—preferences are ordinal, 1st, 2nd, 3rd …
while any other use of these is spelt out: first, second, third, etc. Finally, when
talking of the matrix vote (as we do in Chap. 5), the word ‘sum’ is the number of

Table 1 Sums, Scores and Totals

The Ministers of…. Scores
cabinet ……….. ……….. ……….. ……….. ……….. ………..
Preference Name
1st Sum Sum Sum Sum Sum Sum Score
2nd Sum Sum “ “ “ “ Score
3rd Sum “ “ “ “ “ Score
4th Sum “ “ “ “ “ Score
5th “ “ “ “ “ “ Score
6th “ “ “ “ “ “ Score
Scores Score Score Score Score Score Score Total
Preface xiii

points a candidate may receive for a particular portfolio; a ‘score’ is the addition of
several sums; and a ‘total’ refers to lots of scores on the guidelines shown in
Table 1.

Terminology

That which is often called ‘the paradox of voting’ is more specifically called ‘the
paradox of [binary] voting’.
Many people know that minority rule was wrong. On that basis, and in the
knowledge that unanimity is at the very least unlikely, they assume that which must
be the opposite—majority rule—must be right. As shall be seen in the text, how-
ever, while there is only one form of binary voting—the (simple or weighted)
yes-or-no majority vote—there are many types of multi-option voting: some single
preference, a few non-preferential and others multi-preference. In other words, there
are many ways of determining a majority opinion, some more accurate (as we shall
see) than others.
It follows that there must be a number of different forms of majority rule. One
of them—binary majority rule—is ubiquitous and often iniquitous. But majority
rule governance could also be based on a different more accurate voting method-
ology. Accordingly, this book introduces the term, ‘preferential majority rule’.

Acknowledgements

‘Right kids, what’s for lunch, broccoli?’ By a substantial majority, the will of the
kids is no broccoli. ‘OK, what about turnips?’ Ughhh, they scream even more loudly.
Nope, that loses as well. The children’s collective will is no broccoli and no turnips.
Swedes? Another no. So beware: as in the playgroup, so too in politics, asking
yes-or-no votes on every single thing could mean you finish up with nothing. I get
the impression that most people understand this: friends, colleagues and many
acquaintances—everybody, it seems, except countless professionals in the media,
most in politics and everyone in the UK Electoral Commission.
Instead, in the world at large, it is often assumed that, if a vote has been held, the
outcome is, ergo, democratic. As Hannu Nurmi notes in his foreword, however, for
any given electorate with a given set of preferences, the outcome may sometimes
depend almost entirely on the voting methodology. ‘It’s not the people who vote
that count, it’s the people who count the votes’, was how one Josef Stalin put it, for
even with majority voting, a little cheating may sometimes be necessary.
Secondly, when people talk about voting, they often discuss electoral systems.
The latter can and do vary enormously, and apparently, that’s OK; nevertheless, it
seems, nearly all these systems are also regarded as democratic. As noted already,
maybe nothing’s perfect, so imperfections are inevitable… and that’s OK too, well
xiv Preface

sort of. In stark contrast lies the virtually non-existent debate about
decision-making:5 it varies hardly at all, and the voting methodology is nearly
always the worst: this simplistic (simple or weighted) majority vote.
_________________
My own efforts at questioning this obsession with binary voting go back to 1977,
with a little letter in the Belfast-based newspaper, the Irish News. There was no
response. So my thoughts were put into practice, not least with the help of col-
leagues in the New Ireland Group, NIG, and my especial thanks go to its founder, the
late Dr John Robb. Our first ‘experiment in consensus’ was in 1986, a public
meeting of over 200 persons—politicians from all sides and paramilitaries of both,
along with many other persons of neither: they used preferential points voting, and
sure enough, they found their consensus. ‘Only in years to come’, John said when it
was all over, ‘will people come to learn of the significance of this day’.
Prototypes of the voting procedures described in this book were thus put to the
test and, in later public meetings, developed further. In 1991, for example, we first
used electronic voting. And there have been umpteen demonstrations of consensus
voting since, not only in Ireland, North and South, and in Britain, but also else-
where in Europe, as well as in Africa, America and most recently in Asia.
But back to the early 1980s and, at the first Convention of the Irish Green Party
in 1982, I gave a seminar on consensus voting. One year later, I launched the
Northern Irish GP at a press conference in Belfast’s infamous (and not very ‘green’)
Europa Hotel.6 As with the NIG, so too with the Greens, some friendships from those
days, most especially with Phil Kearney (on whose Co. Wicklow farm these words
are penned), are still strong. And he it was who first suggested we set up the de
Borda Institute, in which others like Alan Quilley played a major role—as a good
Quaker, he had a natural dislike of any divisive voting procedure. Since then, other
colleagues have joined the fray, not least two academics, Katy Hayward and
Vanessa Liston, while Mark McCann is our faithful, long-term computer expert.
Many in the NI media have attended one or more of our NIG or de Borda con-
ferences, and two equally cross-community multi-party gatherings I organised for
the NIGP—an all-party mini-Earth Summit in Belfast at the time of the UN conference
in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and an all-party debate on power-sharing in 1993 in the
town of Dungannon. Now one might have expected the press to be interested in
voting systems and the potentially peaceful consequences thereof but, for some

5
Many social choice scientists are also at fault in this regard. Totally mutually exclusive options
are sometimes difficult to find, and even the two sides in the Cold War divide—communist or
capitalist—shared a common creed based on human greed, a desire to ‘conquer’ nature to satisfy
that greed. In theory, however, when talking about elections, candidates are always, as it were,
mutually exclusive… even when their policies are fairly similar; such was the case, for example,
with Josef Stalin and Leon Trotsky. So voting theory often revolves around elections and not
decision-making.
6
So that was nearly 40 years ago. And initially, the Greens were all very consensual: we sat in
circles, we started in silence, and we used consensus voting. Today, however, while a Borda
methodology is still used in some internal party elections, it is seldom deployed in its primary
function of decision-making, while the matrix vote was adopted and then just quietly forgotten.
Preface xv

reason, many just wanted to interview the representative(s) from Sinn Féin.7
Academia wasn’t much better: when we approached Queen’s University for a
venue in 1986, we were told such a cross-community conference would be far too
dangerous—so we used the Students’ Union instead… whereupon, to be fair, some
academics crossed the road to see what was going on. In general, however, one
can’t help getting the impression that professors don’t like to debate professional
matters with persons like the current author who never even graduated.
There are of course the exceptions, and the most notable were the late Professors
Elizabeth Meehan in Belfast and Sir Michael Dummett in Oxford. Amongst those
very much alive and still kicking hard, professors all, are (from West to East)
Donald Saari and Arend Lijphart, both in California, Don Horowitz in North
Carolina, John Barry (Belfast), John Baker (Dublin), Iain McLean (Oxford),
Maurice Salles (Caen), Hannu Nurmi (Turku), Sasha Rusetsky (Tbilisi), Fuad
Aleskerov (Moscow), Yáng Lóng 杨龙 (Tiānjīn), Sòng Yíngfā 送迎发 (Xúzhōu)
and Chāo Yung-Màu 趙永茂 (Taipei). Not quite so well decorated, perhaps, are
colleagues in openDemocracy, like Rosemary Belcher; fellows in the Royal Society
for the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce such as Matthew Taylor; friends in the
Conflict Research Society, Andrew Thompson et al.; and professionals like Michael
Emerson (no relation) in Central European Political Studies in Brussels. Yet others
with even more modest qualifications include some of my best friends, not least
Wes Holmes of the NIG, who still gives me magnificent, often liquid support.
Rather fewer journalists have shown any interest in voting systems, so life has
sometimes been a little frustrating. In 1990, for example, out of total exasperation, I
met with the controller of BBC NI and asked why the subject of consensus could not
be covered, at least once. ‘We need a hook’, he said, ‘and once there is a story, we
can then debate the topic’. So I learnt some Serbo-Croat (which wasn’t too difficult
as I already spoke Russian) and went to Bosnia to work as a freelance corre-
spondent, cycling, in winter and in war, from Zagreb via Banja Luka to Belgrade,
and back via Zvornik and Sarajevo to Split. BBC NI? Not interested. They don’t do
books either, not mine anyway. Book launches in the House of Lords with the late
Lord Paddy Ashdown? In Áras an Uachtaráin, his official residence, with President
Michael D Higgins? No, not good enough, boy.
So, going back a little, in 1994, I turned my attention to London, BBC Radio 4,
and 25 years later—ah, at last!—it paid off, but mainly because Britain was then
going bonkers over its binary Brexit: I did two interviews, with one on its famous
Today programme. More recently, I travelled overland (of course) with my fold-up
bicycle (of course) on two year-long lecture tours, from Belfast to Beijing and
beyond; I gave talks on preferential decision-making in universities and the like in
15 different jurisdictions, including Iran, Russia and China. The media at home
were interested… but only when I was evacuated from Gansu because of
COVID-19. In my work on voting systems? No no.

7
The best way to get a journalist to attend a function, by the way, especially a public meeting on a
Saturday, is to ask them to take the chair. Ha, perfect; you’ve got ’em for the entire day!
xvi Preface

Overall, then, media coverage has been minimal. Billy Graham and Noel Doran
of the Irish News were fine exceptions; Andy Pollak and Joe Humphreys of the
Irish Times, two more; and eventually, the BBC’s Evan Davies and Justin Webb of
Radio 4 actually mentioned names and voting procedures like de Borda and
Condorcet. Meanwhile, on the social media network, the long-serving peace activist
Rob Fairmichael is a strong supporter. So far, however, that’s just about it.
_________________
In the light of such discouragement, friends have been vital. Indeed, without
them, most of whom agree with my ideas though not always with the supporting
mathematical arguments, this book would not have been written. I start with Dervla
Murphy, who first launched me on my literary endeavours in 1978—her disdain of
politicians and their shenanigans is exemplary. By this time, of course, the NI peace
movement was underway, and I still get exhortations and encouragements from
Mairead Corrigan Maguire. Overall, however, the NI response has invariably been
rather muted.
So as noted, I had to go abroad and campaign there as well, and the list now
extends to many lands. Apart from those I have already mentioned, there are
umpteen others too, many of whom have been my hosts… and this time we go from
first to most recent: they include Leo Joosten (Leiden), an old pal from the 1970s
when we took a bunch of kids cycling to Donegal; Angela Mickley (Berlin) who
again dates back from those heavy days in Belfast and who has hosted many
seminars on consensus politics in her university in Potsdam; along with Phil
Kearney, Jeremy Wates (Brussels) was also at the first Irish Green Party convention
in 1982; in 1986, it was time for the bicycle again, so off I went to meet another
cyclist and then my co-author, Irina Bazileva (Moscow); Nato Kirvalidze was one
of half-a-dozen to greet me in Tbilisi in 1990, where I gave a press conference (in
Russian—my Georgian is no good) on power-sharing at the invitation of the late
Zurab Zhvania MP; and shortly afterwards in the Balkans, I started a partnership
with Věra Stojarová (Brno)—we co-edited a book together—and Valery Perry
(Sarajevo), who writes her own; in the year 2006, the French Green Party was
having an argument, a potential split, so Vicky Selwyn (Normandy) invited me to
France to talk to a whole load of French people about a Frenchman they’d never
heard of—the good Jean-Charles de Borda; and next came Marcin Gerwin, who
asked me to give a presentation or two in Warsaw in 2009. Finally, on my two
overland journeys across Eurasia when I was again looked after by nearly all of the
above, I also met Albert Franz, who started my grand tour by inviting me to give a
TEDx talk in Vienna in 2017; then came Anushka Danoyan and Tatev Karapetyan
(Yerevan), Sarafraz Hossein (Tehran), George Cautherley (Hong Kong) and,
finally, my latest 2020 additions, Marina Nizar and William Tham (Kuala Lumpur).
To everyone who has made this book possible, to all of the above, thank you; to
Hannu Nurmi again, a special word of thanks for his long-term support which now
culminates in the foreword; and once more to Rob Fairmichael, who still corrects all
Preface xvii

my spelling mistakes, and quite a few others besides. A special word of commis-
eration is due to all those constitutional wallahs who, having read these pages, will
have to amend their umpteen rules and regulations in countless preambles and
subclauses in numerous articles, contracts and standing orders. Lastly, but crucially,
I give my thanks to Johannes Glaeser and colleagues in Heidelberg, my patient
publishers in Springer.

Wicklow, Ireland Peter Emerson

May 2020

References

Arrow, K. (1963). Social Choice and Individual Values (2nd ed.). New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Saari, D. G. (2019). Arrow, and Unexpected Consequences of his Theorem. Public Choice,
179(1).
Contents

1 The Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 A Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 The Theory of Majority Voting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3.1 Doing It All by Halves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3.2 The Conclusion on Majority Voting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3.3 The One-Party, One-Option, One-Candidate State . . . . . . . 5
1.4 Majority Voting in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5.1 ‘Option X, Yes-or-No?’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5.2 ‘Option X or Option Y?’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2 Decision-Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1.1 The Problem and the Personnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.1.2 The Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2 The Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3 The Consensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.4 The Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.5 The Vote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.5.1 The Mathematics of the Vote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.5.2 The Consensus Coefficient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.5.3 A Consequence of the Vote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.5.4 The Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

xix
xx Contents

3 The A-B-C-D of Voting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.2 A Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.2.1 Another Scenario? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.3 Deciding How to Decide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.4 The Single-Peaked Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.4.1 The Collective Will . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.4.2 The Consensus Coefficient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.5 Possible Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.5.1 Overwhelming Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.5.2 A Consensus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.5.3 Best Possible Compromise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.5.4 Discord . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.6 Analysing the Outcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.7 Calculating the Exact Outcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4 Consensus Voting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.2 The Balanced Debate—the Choice of Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.2.1 The Balanced Debate—the Number of Options . . . . . . . . . 35
4.3 The Normal Distribution Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.4 The Vote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.5 The Count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.5.1 Partial Voting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.6 The Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.7 Manipulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.8 Inter-party Negotiations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.9 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5 The Consequences of Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.2 The MBC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
5.3 The Quota Borda System, QBS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
5.3.1 The Mathematics of QBS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.4 The Matrix Vote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.4.1 The Task . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
5.4.2 A Simple Matrix Vote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.4.3 The Count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.4.4 The Tactics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
5.4.5 A Real Matrix Vote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Contents xxi

6 Comparing Decision-Making Voting Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

6.1 Introduction—A Little History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
6.2 The Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
6.2.1 Another Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
6.2.2 The Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
6.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
6.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
7 Comparing Electoral Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
7.1.1 Orwellian Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
7.1.2 Two-Tier Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
7.1.3 Multiple Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
7.1.4 Preferential Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
7.2 An Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
7.2.1 The Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
7.2.2 The Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
7.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
7.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Annex A: The Consensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Annex B: Interpreting the Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Annex C: Variations of Consensus Coefficients. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Abbreviations

AGM Annual general meeting

AV* Alternative vote
BC Borda count
DPRK Democratic People’s Republic of [North] Korea
EC/U European Commission/Union
EEC European Economic Area
FPTP First-past-the-post
IRV* Instant run-off voting
MBC Modified BC
MLA Member of the legislative assembly (NI)
MMP Multi-member proportional
MP Member of Parliament
NI Northern Ireland
NZ New Zealand
OSCE Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
PM Prime minister
PNG Papua New Guinea
PPV Preferential points voting
PR Proportional representation
PV* Preference voting
QBS Quota Borda system
SNTV Single non-transferable vote
STV* Single transferable vote
TRS Two-round system
UK United Kingdom
UN United Nations

xxiii
xxiv Abbreviations

US(A) United States (of America)

WTO World Trade Organization

* Four different names for the same system. When used in decision-making
or in elections in single-seat constituencies, it is normally referred to as AV;
in multi-member constituencies with PR, the system is called PR-STV. AV is
also called IRV in North America; while in Australasia, if it’s used as an
electoral system, it is called AV; in decision-making, it is referred to as PV,
preference voting.
List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 The binary debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Fig. 4.1 The normal distribution curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Fig. 5.1 Days, weeks, months…. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

xxv
List of Tables

Table 1.1 A party divided . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Table 1.2 A party very divided . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Table 1.3 A party equally divided . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Table 1.4 A party even more divided . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Table 1.5 The pairings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Table 1.6 A party even more divided . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Table 3.1 A party even more divided . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Table 3.2 A party very divided . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Table 3.3 The pairings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Table 3.4 The number of pairings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Table 3.5 The three voters’ almost unanimous preferences . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Table 3.6 The three voters’ almost unanimous points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Table 3.7 The three voters’ rather different preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Table 3.8 The three voters’ rather different points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Table 3.9 The three voters’ rather mixed preferences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Table 3.10 The three voters’ rather mixed points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Table 3.11 The three voters’ discord . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Table 3.12 Outcomes of a five-option ballot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Table 3.13 The three voters’ rather different preferences and points . . . . . 31
Table 3.14 The four voters’ preferences and points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Table 5.1 A matrix vote ballot paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Table 5.2 A semi-completed matrix vote ballot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Table 5.3 A matrix vote tally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Table 5.4 A matrix vote result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Table 5.5 A fully completed matrix vote ballot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Table 6.1 20 voters’ 1st preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Table 6.2 The 20 voters’ profile. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Table 6.3 The 21 voters’ profile. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Table 6.4 The outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

xxvii
xxviii List of Tables

Table 6.5 A comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Table 6.6 Decision-making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Table 6.7 A party even more divided . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Table 7.1 Single-ballot electoral systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Table 7.2 Double-ballot electoral systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Table 7.3 Multi-candidate non-preferential electoral systems . . . . . . . . . . 65
Table 7.4 Preferential electoral systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Table 7.5 20 voters’ 1st preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Table 7.6 A village profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Table 7.7 The analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Table 7.8 A comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Table 7.9 Electoral systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Table B.1 Sets of preferences and their interpretations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Table C.1 The outcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Table C.2 Variations on a theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
List of Graphs

Graph 3.1 A ‘single-peaked’ curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Graph 3.2 Four ‘single-peaked’ curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Graph 3.3 An unusual opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Graph 3.4 A very unsettled set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Graph 3.5 The three voters’ almost unanimous curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Graph 3.6 The three voters’ almost unanimous collective will . . . . . . . . . 26
Graph 3.7 The three voters’ rather different curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Graph 3.8 The three voters’ consensus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Graph 3.9 The three voters’ rather mixed curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Graph 3.10 The three voters’ best compromise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Graph 3.11 The three voters’ discord . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Graph 3.12 The three voters’ consensus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Graph 3.13 The plateau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

xxix
Chapter 1
The Problem

Abstract There are times when majority voting does not work well. Indeed, occa-
sionally, this supposed methodology of resolving disputes only exacerbates them!
Binary voting is ancient, divisive and, at worst, a provocation to violence. Yet its use
is ubiquitous. This book suggests a more democratic way, but first, let us consider
the theory of decision-making.

1.1 Introduction

Binary voting is used in law, as in ‘guilty or innocent?’ verdicts; in decision-making

in business, with majority shareholdings and so on; in countless associations, trade
unions, societies and clubs, when resolutions are debated; and in politics whenever
policies are ratified with laws to be enacted. Even in the un Security Council on
matters of huge complexity, the final question is often yes-or-no and for-or-against
(and the big boys have a veto).
But binary voting is the basis of that which has caused so many problems in
so many places, worldwide: binary majority rule. People believe in majority rule,
which is fine. But they then assume that a majority opinion can be found by means
of a majority vote, which is not fine at all and, what’s more, it’s not true. As we
shall see in Chap. 2, majority voting is often erroneous, while Chap. 6 will show
that there are lots of ways of identifying a majority opinion; for the moment at least,
we will refer (a) to ‘binary majority rule’ which can be not only horribly unfair,
but also, in some jurisdictions, dysfunctional if not downright dangerous, and (b) to
‘preferential majority rule’ which could be so much better. Suffice here to say that
binary majority rule was a major cause of the Troubles in Northern Ireland; of the
genocide in Rwanda which started with the slogan ‘Rubanda Nyamwinshi’ ‘we are
the majority’ (Prunier 1995: 185); of mayhem in the Balkans, where ‘all the wars in
the former Yugoslavia started with a referendum’, (Oslobodjenje,1 7.2.1999) and of
many other horrible tragedies—not least, Soviet bolshevism (para 5.1).

1 Sarajevo’s famous newspaper.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 1

P. Emerson, Democratic Decision-making,
SpringerBriefs in Political Science,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52808-9_1
2 1 The Problem

Table 1.1 A party divided

Preferences Ms i Mr j Ms k
1st A B C

Democracy was not meant to be just for a fraction, the bigger ‘half’, a faction
of maybe only 50% + 1; democracy is for (almost) everybody. So let’s first have
a look at the theory of decision-making; and it must be emphasised, this book is
mainly about just that, decision-making. Voting is also used in elections, of course,
and sometimes here too the methodology is that of the majority vote; indeed, several
forms of voting which are used in decision-making may also be used in elections.
But again I emphasise, this book is mainly about decision-making.

1.2 A Scenario

First, then, the theory. Imagine a simple scene: the Pink Party office has a pink front
door. Ms i, a member of the three-person executive, wants to add a white peace
symbol and moves a motion to this effect; Mr j proposes an amendment, some green
stripes instead; Ms k suggests purple spots. So there are (at least) four possibilities:

Option A - pink with a white symbol;

Option B - pink with green stripes;
Option C - pink with purple spots;
Option D - the status quo ante, plain pink.

The debate ensues: ‘We must show our peaceful intent’, says Ms i; ‘our environ-
mental credentials’, opts Mr j; ‘our feminist principles’, opines Ms k. In summary, all
three have different 1st preferences, as shown in Table 1.1, and the task is to resolve
these differences in a civilised, democratic manner.

1.3 The Theory of Majority Voting

Maybe the democratic thing to do is to use majority voting. Well, there are two types:
the first is based on a simple ‘yes-or-no?’ question, either on one particular option,
as in ‘Option X, yes-or-no?’ or perhaps there could be a single question for each of
a number of options; in this instance, the four of them listed above are A, B, C and
D. The second sort of question offers a choice of two options: ‘Option X or option
Y?’ So with these four options, there are six possible ‘pairings’, as they are called:
A or B? A or C? A-D? B-C? B-D? and C-D?
Well, if the debate is to be resolved by majority votes of the former variety, and if
all three committee members vote in favour of only their 1st preference, guess what,
1.3 The Theory of Majority Voting 3

Table 1.2 A party very divided

Option A B C D
Majority votes 1:2 1:2 1:2 0:3

Table 1.3 A party equally divided

Preferences Ms i Mr j Ms k
1st A B C
2nd B C A
3rd C A B

as with the kids in the preface, there’ll be a majority against every option: every
single thing loses, as shown in Table 1.2.
So that’s no good. Maybe, therefore, the dispute should be resolved in two votes,
in which case, we need to know the three persons’ preferences; let us assume they
are as in Table 1.3.
Let the first majority vote be a contest between A and B; well the two women both
prefer A to B and only the man prefers B to A—so A wins. In the second majority
vote, the decider, it’s a vote for the winner, A versus C, and both Mr j and Ms k prefer
C to A, so the collective will is for option C. Fine. By 67%. That’s a huge majority.
But hang on a minute. If the first round is between B and C, which B wins, then
the final will be between B and A, which is a victory for A. That’s fine too, and
equally hugely so.
Or, hang on again: with a first round of C versus A, the second round is C versus
B, and the popular choice will now be B, by (again) a massive 67%. Fine?
In this setting, then, the outcome, the totally democratic decision of all three, is
either A or B or C; it all depends on the order of voting. To summarise, then, the two
types of majority voting: with ‘X, yes-or-no?’ the answer is nothing; and with ‘X or
Y?’ it might be anything.

1.3.1 Doing It All by Halves

Maybe a more reliable decision could be ascertained with these ‘Option X or option
Y?’ questions or pairings, if we took all four possible outcomes into consideration.
Let it be assumed the three persons’ preferences are as shown in Table 1.4.
And, oh dear, there is still a winner from every pairing, as is now shown in Table
1.5.
Overall, in this instance, option A is more popular than B, which is written as

A > B.
4 1 The Problem

Table 1.4 A party even more divided

Preferences Ms i Mr j Ms k
1st A B C
2nd B C D
3rd C D A
4th D A B

Table 1.5 The pairings

Pairings A:B A:C A:D B:C B:D C:D
Majority votes 2:1 1:2 1:2 2:1 2:1 3:0

and in like manner,

B > C and C > D and D > A.

So in all, we can say

A > B > C > D > A.........

and it goes on and on for ever. This ‘cycle’ is also called ‘the paradox of [binary]
voting’: no matter what the outcome, there’s always a majority which prefers
something else.

1.3.2 The Conclusion on Majority Voting

In effect, then, majority voting might work if and when there are only two options
(which on contentious topics in politics, as we shall see, should be seldom if at all).
But it doesn’t work well if there are more than two options. Indeed, with ‘Option X,
yes-or-no?’ questions, if there is no majority for any single option, there will be a
majority against every damned option—a scenario first noted by Pliny the Younger
in ce 105; and if we use ‘Option X or option Y?’ questions, we might find that there’s
a binary paradox, as first noted by Le Marquis de Condorcet in 1785.2
In a modern pluralist democracy, however, whenever the political subject under
debate is complex and/or contentious, there should be, as it were by definition, more
than two options ‘on the table’. And not only ‘on the table’ but also on the ballot
paper! I suppose there is one question which is definitely dichotomous: ‘Which side

2 One of the lessons from the Weimar Republic is that, rather than posing an ‘Option X, yes-or-
no?’ ballot, it is wiser to ask an ‘Option X or option Y?’ question. Hence, Germany’s constructive
votes of no confidence: if you want to replace government A, you must first propose an alternative,
government B.
Another random document with
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year, he shall be prohibited coming to the church, and when dead be
refused ecclesiastical burial.”
All, rich and poor, noble and simple, on coming to the Sacrament of
Penance, were treated alike. An old fifteenth-century book of
Instructions says—
“Every body that shall be confessed, be he never so hye
degree or estate, ought to shew loweness in herte,
lowenes in speche and lowenes in body for that tyme to
hym that shall hear hym; and or he begynne to shew what
lyeth in hys conscience, fyrste at hys beginnyng he shall
say, Benedicite: and afturwards hys confessor hath
answered Dominus. Sume than, whych be lettered, seyn
here Confiteor til they come to Mea culpa: sume seyn no
ferthere, but to Quia peccavi nimis; some seyn no
Confiteor in latin till at the last end. Of these maner
begynnings it is lytyl charge, for the substance of
Confession is in opyn declaration and schewyng of ye
synnes, in whyche a mannus conscience demyth hym
gulty agenst God. In thys declaration be manye formes of
shewyng, for some scheme and divyde here confession in
thought, speche and dede, and in thys forme sume can
specyfye here synnes, and namely in cotydian confession,
as when a man is confessed ofte; oythes as every day or
every othur day or onus in sevene nyght. Also sume
schewe and here confession by declaration of ye fyve
wyttes, and all may be well as in such cotydyan
confession. Also sume, and the most parte lettyred and
unletteryd, schewe openly her synnes be confession of ye
sevene dedly synnes, and thane they schewe what they
have offendyd God agenste Hys precepts, and then in
mysdyspendyng of here fyve wyttes, and thanne in not
fulfyllyng ye seven dedus of mercy. And so, whanne they
have specyfyed what comyth to here mynde, then yn ye
ende, they yelde them cowpable generally to God and
putte hem in Hys mercy, askyng lowly penaunce for her
 synnnes and absolution of here confessor in the name of
holy church.”
The instructions, given by the Canons of the English Church, as to
the method to be followed by priests in hearing confessions, are
simple and to the point. They are to remember that they are doctors
for the cure of spiritual evils, and to be ever ready “to pour oil and
wine” into the wounds of their penitents. They are to bear in mind the
proverb, that “what may cure the eye need not cure the heel,” and
are to apply the proper remedy fitting to each disease. They are to
be patient, and “to hear what any one may have to say, bearing with
them in the spirit of mildness, and not exasperating them by word or
look.” They are “not to let their eyes wander hither and thither, but
keep them cast downwards, not looking into the face of the penitent,”
unless it be to gauge the sincerity of his sorrow, which is often
reflected most of all in the countenance. Women are to be confessed
in the open church, and outside the (lenten) veil, not so as to be
heard by others but to be seen by them.
The place where confessions might be heard was settled in the
Constitutions of Archbishop Walter Reynold, in 1322.
“Let the priest,” it is said, “choose for himself a common
place for hearing confessions, where he may be seen
generally by all in the church; and do not let him hear any
one, and especially any woman, in a private place, except
in great necessity and because of some infirmity of the
penitent.”
Myrc, in his Instructions, says that in Confession the priest is to

“Teche hym to knele downe on hys kne,

Pore other ryche, whether he be,
Then over thyn yen pulle thyn hod,
And here hys schryfte wyth mylde mod.”

The place usually chosen by the priest to hear the confessions of his
people was apparently at the opening of the chancel, or at a bench
end near that part of the nave. In some of the churchwardens’
accounts there is mention of a special seat or bench, called the
“shryving stool,” “the shriving pew,” “the shriving place;” whilst at St.
Mary the Great, Cambridge, there appears to have been a special
erection for Lent time, as there is an entry of expense for “six irons
pertaining to the shryving stole for lenton,” which suggests that these
iron rods were to support some sort of a screen round about the
place of confession. Perhaps, however, it may have been for an
extra confessor, since, as already related, in one place it is said that
the parish paid for three extra priests “to shreve” in Holy Week.
The Holy Eucharist.—All adults of every parish were bound to
receive the Holy Communion at least once a year under pain of
being considered outside the benefits and privileges of Holy Church
and of being refused Christian burial, if they were to die without
having made their peace. Besides the Easter precept, all were
strongly urged to approach the Holy Eucharist more frequently, and
especially at Christmas and Easter, and, as has been already
pointed out, there is some evidence to show that, in point of fact, lay
people did communicate more frequently, and especially on the
Sundays of Lent.
At Easter and other times of general Communion the laity, after their
reception of the Sacrament, were given a drink of wine and water
from a chalice. The clergy were, however, directed to explain
carefully to the people that this was not part of the Sacrament. They
were to impress upon them the fact that they really received the
Body and Blood of our Lord under the one form of bread, and that
this cup of wine and water was given merely to enable them to
swallow the host more securely and easily after their fast.
Extreme Unction.—
“This Sacrament,” says the Synod of Exeter, “is to be
considered as health giving to both body and soul ...
wherefore it is not the least of the Sacraments, and parish
priests, when required, should show themselves ever
ready to visit the sick, and to administer it to such as ask,
without asking or expecting any payment or reward.
 “We further order that, avoiding all negligence, parish
priests shall be watchful and careful in the care committed
to them, and that without reasonable cause they never
sleep out of their parishes. And further that in case they do
ever so, they procure some fitting substitute, who knows
how to do everything which the cure of souls requires.”
If by the fault, negligence, or absence of his priest any one, old or
young, shall die without Baptism, Confession, Holy Communion, or
Extreme Unction, the priest convicted of this is to be forthwith
suspended from the exercise of his ecclesiastical functions, and this
suspension is not to be relaxed until he has done fitting penance “for
so grave a crime.”
 SACRAMENT OF EXTREME UNCTION
Visitation of the Sick.—The subject of Extreme Unction, “the
Sacrament of the sick,” to be given in danger of death through
sickness, raises the question of the visitation of the sick in a
mediæval parish. The order that all parish priests should visit the
sick of their district every Sunday has already been noticed. It was,
moreover, a positive law of the Church, that every priest should go at
once on being called to a sick person, no matter what time of the day
or night the summons might come. Priests were ordered also to
impress upon all doctors the need of urging sick people and their
friends to send immediately for the priest in all cases of serious
illnesses. Priests, however, were not to wait to be called, but directly
they heard that any of their people were unwell they were warned to
go at once to them.
A chance story, used to enliven a fifteenth-century sermon, illustrates
the readiness of priests to go to the sick whenever they were
summoned.
“I read,” says the preacher, “in Devonshire, besides
Axbridge dwelt a holy vicar, and had in his parish a sick
woman that lay all at the death, half a myle from him in a
town. The which woman at midnight sent after this vicar to
come and give her her rites. Then this vicar with all haste
that he might he rose and rode to the church and took
God’s body in a box of ivory,” etc.
Archbishop Peckham legislated for the mode of carrying the Blessed
Sacrament to the sick, or rather he codified and made obligatory the
usual practice. The parish priest was to be vested in surplice and
stole, and accompanied by another priest, or at least by a clerk. He
was to carry the Blessed Sacrament in both hands before his breast,
covered by a veil, and was to be preceded by a server carrying a
light in a lantern, and ringing a hand bell, to give notice to the people
that “the King of Glory under the veil of bread” was being borne
through their midst, in order that they might kneel or otherwise adore
Him.
If the case was so urgent, that there was no time for the priest to
secure a clerk to carry the light and bell, Lyndwood notes that the
practice was for the priest to hang the lamp and bell upon one of his
arms. This he would also do in large parishes, where sick people
had to be visited at a distance and on horseback. In this case the
lamp and bell would be hung round the horse’s neck.
On the return to the church, should the Blessed Sacrament have
been consumed, the light was to be extinguished and the bell
silenced, so that the people might understand, and not, in this case,
kneel as the priest passed along. Lyndwood adds that the people
should be told to follow the Sacrament with “bowed head, devotion of
heart, and uplifted hands.” They were to be taught also to use a set
form of prayer as the priest passed along, such as the following:
“Hail! Light of the world, Word of the Father, true Victim, Living Flesh,
true God and true Man. Hail flesh of Christ, which has suffered for
me! Oh, flesh of Christ, let Thy blood wash my soul!” The great
canonist says that he himself on these occasions was accustomed to
make use of the well-known “Ave verum Corpus, natum ex Maria
Virgine,” etc.
 HEARSE AND PALL, FIFTEENTH CENTURY. CANTORS AT
LECTERN
The bell and light, or lights, for the visitation of the sick, were to be
found by the parish, and the churchwardens’ accounts consistently
record expenses to procure and maintain these lights. In some
places, apparently, the people found two such lanterns instead of the
one which the law obliged them to furnish. In the Archdeacon’s
visitations, also, there were set inquiries to see that the parish did its
duty in this matter. In one such examination there are references to
the necessary “cyphus pro infirmis,” which is stated to be good, bad,
or wanting altogether. What this may have been is not quite clear;
but probably it was the dish in which the priest purified his fingers,
after having communicated the sick person. Myrc gives a rhyming
summary of what a priest should know about visiting the sick. He is
to go fast when called; he is to take a clean surplice and a stole,
“and pul thy hod over thy syght;” in case of death being imminent, he
is not to make the sick man confess all his sins, but merely charge
him to ask God’s mercy with humble heart. If the sick man cannot
speak, but shows by signs that he wishes for the Sacraments
—“Nertheless thou schalt hym Soyle, and give hym hosul and holy
oyle.”
The bishops watched carefully to see that no laxity should creep into
the mode of giving the Viaticum to the sick. Bishop Grandisson, in
1335, issued a special mandate to the priests of his diocese on the
matter, as he had heard that some carelessness had been noticed.
He reminds them that the Provincial Constitutions were clear in their
prescriptions that all were to wear a surplice and stole, unless the
weather were bad, and then these might be carried and put on
before the room of the sick man was entered. They must always
have the light borne before them, however, and the bell was to be
rung to call the attention of the people generally to the passing of the
Sacrament, and thus enable them to make their adoration.
According to most books of instruction on the duties of priests,
before the sick man was anointed or received the holy Viaticum, the
parson was to put to him what were known as “the seven
interrogations.” He was to be asked: (1) if he believed the articles of
the faith and the Holy Scriptures; (2) whether he recognized that he
had offended God Almighty; (3) whether he was sorry for his sins; (4)
whether he desired to amend, and if God gave him more time, by His
grace he would do so; (5) whether he forgave all his enemies; (6)
whether he would make all satisfaction; (7) “Belevest thowe fully that
Criste dyed for the, and that thow may never be saved but by the
merite of Cristes passione, and thonne thonkest therof God with
thyne harte as moche as thowe mayest? He answerethe, Yee.”
“Thanne let the curat desire the sick persone to saye In
manus tuas &cetera with a good stedfast mynde and yf
that he canne. And yef he cannot, let the curate saye it for
hym. And who so ever may verely of very good
conscience and trowthe without any faynyng, answere
‘yee,’ to all the articles and poyntes afore rehersed, he
shalle live ever in hevyne with Alle myghtie God and with
 his holy cumpany, wherunto Ihesus brynge bothe youe
and me. Amen.”
Marriage.—So far in this chapter the Sacraments which every
parishioner had to receive at one time or other have been briefly
treated. It remains to speak of the Sacrament of Matrimony, which,
though not absolutely general, yet commonly affected most people in
every parish. “Marriage,” says Bishop Quevil, in the Synod of Exeter
—“marriage should be celebrated with great discretion and
reverence, in proper places and at proper times, with all modesty
and mature consideration; it should be celebrated not in taverns nor
during feastings and drinkings, nor in secret and suspect places.”
That a matter of this importance should be rightly done, the Synod
lays down the law of the Catholic Church on the point; no espousal
or marriage was to be held valid unless the contract was made in the
presence of the parish priest and three witnesses. For, although the
contract of the parties was the essential factor in marriage, still,
“without the authority of the Church, by the judgment of which the
contract had to be approved, marriages are not to be contracted.”
 SACRAMENT OF MATRIMONY
The first matter to be attended to in arranging for a marriage in any
parochial church was, as now, the publication of the banns in the
church on three successive Sundays or feast days. This was to
secure the proof of the freedom of the parties to marry. In a book of
instructions for parish priests, written about 1426, some interesting
information is given as to marriage.
“The seventh Sacrament is wedlock,” it says, “before the
which Sacrament the banes in holy church shal be thryes
asked on thre solempne dayes—a werk day or two
between, at the lest: eche day on this maner: N. of V. has
spoken with N. of P. to have hir to his wife, and to ryght
lyve in forme of holy chyrche. If any mon knowe any
lettyng qwy they may not come togedyr say now or never
on payne of cursyng.”
On the day appointed for the marriage, at the door of the church, the
priest shall interrogate the parties as follows:—
“N. Hast thu wille to have this wommon to thi wedded wif.
R. Ye syr. My thu wel fynde at thi best to love hur and hold
ye to hur and to no other to thi lives end. R. Ye syr. Then
take her by yor hande and say after me: I N. take the N. in
forme of holy chyrche to my wedded wyfe, forsakyng alle
other, holdyng me hollych to the, in sekenes and in hele,
in ryches and in poverte, in well and in wo, tyl deth us
departe, and there to I plyght ye my trowthe.”
Then the woman repeated the form as above.
It was this “Marriage at the church door” which had to be
established, according to Bracton, in any question as to the legality
or non-legality of the contract. After this “taking to wife at the church
door,” the parties entered the church and completed the rite in the
church itself. As in the case of baptisms, churchings, and funerals,
the fee for marriages was fixed at 1d., but apparently all who could
afford it, gave more.
 “Three ornaments,” says the author of Dives and Pauper
—“three ornaments (at marriage) belonged principally to
the wyfe: a rynge on her finger, a broche on hyr breste,
and a garlande on hir head. The rynge betokeneth true
love; the broche betokeneth clenness of herte and chastity
that she ought to have; and the garland betokeneth the
gladness and the dignity of the sacrament of wedlock.”
Some of the ornaments for the bride at marriage the parish provided.
The nuptial veil was one of the things which the churchwardens were
supposed to find, and frequent inquiries were made concerning it in
the parochial visitations. In one parish the wardens possessed “one
standing mazer to serve for brides at their wedding;” and in another,
a set of jewels was left in trust for the use of brides on their wedding
day. If lent outside the parish, they were to be paid for, and the
receipt was to go to the common purposes of the church to which
they belonged.
 CHAPTER X
THE PARISH PULPIT
The influence on parochial life of the Sunday sermon and what went
with it can hardly be exaggerated. It was not only that it was at this
time that the priest instructed his people in their faith and in the
practice of their religion; but the pulpit was the means, and in those
days the sole means, by which the official or quasi-official business
of the place was announced to the inhabitants of a district. The great
variety of matters that had necessarily to be brought to the notice of
the parishioners would have all tended to make the pulpit utterances
on the Sunday, in a pre-Reformation parish, both interesting and
instructive. In this chapter it is proposed to illustrate some of the
many features presented at the time of the Sunday sermon; and first
as to the regular religious teaching of faith and morals.
The first duty of the Church, after seeing to the administration of the
Sacraments and the offering of the Sacrifice of the Altar, was
obviously to teach and direct its children in all matters of belief and
practice. This was done from the pulpit, which was in all probability
an unpretentious wooden erection, perhaps in the screen, or at the
chancel arch. In one case there is given the cost of the erection of a
pulpit of wood; another churchwardens’ account speaks of “clasps
for” the pulpit (?), possibly hinges for the door; a third tells of “a
green silk veil for the pulpit”; and a fourth of “cloth and a pillow” for it.
The chief interest, however, is not in the thing itself, but in its use.
 PULPIT, 1475, ST. PAUL’S, TRURO
It is impossible to think that Chaucer’s typical priest was a mere
creation of his imagination. The picture must have had its
counterpart in numberless parishes in England in the fourteenth
century. This is how the poet’s priest is described:—

“A good man was ther of religioun,

And was a poure parsoun of a town;
But riche he was of holy thought and werk.
He was also a lerned man, a clerk,
That Christe’s Gospel trewely wolde preche,
His parischens devoutly wolde he teche.
 But Christe’s lore and His Apostles twelve
He taughte, but first he folwede it himselve.”

It will be remembered, too, that the story Chaucer makes his priest
contribute to the Canterbury Tales is nothing else than an excellent
and complete tract, almost certainly a translation of a Latin
theological treatise, upon the Sacrament of Penance.
As a sample, however, of what is popularly believed on this subject
at the present day, it is well to take the opinion of by no means an
extreme party writer, Bishop Hobhouse. “Preaching,” he says, “was
not a regular part of the Sunday observances as now. It was rare,
but we must not conclude from the silence of our MSS. (i.e.
churchwardens’ accounts) that it was never practised.” In another
place he states, upon what he thinks sufficient evidence, “that there
was a total absence of any system of clerical training, and that the
cultivation of the conscience as the directing power of man’s soul,
and the implanting of holy affections in the heart seem to have been
no part of the Church’s system of guidance.” That this is certainly not
a correct view as to the way in which the pastors of the parochial
churches in pre-Reformation days discharged—or rather neglected
—their duties, in view of the facts, appears to be certain. The
grounds for this opinion are the following: for practical purposes we
may divide the religious teaching, given by the clergy, into the two
classes of sermons and instructions. The distinction is obvious. By
the first are meant those set discourses to prove some definite
theme, or expound some definite passage of Holy Scripture, or
deduce the lessons to be learnt from the life of some saint. In other
words, putting aside the controversial aspect, which, of course, was
rare in those days, a sermon in mediæval times was much what a
sermon is to-day. There was this difference, however, that in pre-
Reformation days the sermon was not probably so frequent as in
these modern times. Now, whatever instruction is given to the people
at large is conveyed to them almost entirely in the form of set
sermons, which, however admirable in themselves, seldom convey
to their hearers consecutive and systematic, dogmatic and moral
teaching. Mediæval methods of imparting religious knowledge were
different. For the most part the priest fulfilled the duty of instructing
his flock by plain, unadorned, and familiar instructions upon matters
of faith and practice. These must have much more resembled our
present catechetical instructions than our modern pulpit discourses.
To the subject of set sermons I shall have occasion to return
presently, but as vastly more important, at any rate in the opinion of
our Catholic forefathers, let us first consider the question of familiar
instructions. For the sake of clearness we will confine our attention to
the two centuries (the fourteenth and fifteenth) previous to the great
religious revolution under Henry VIII.
Before the close of the thirteenth century, namely, in a.d. 1281,
Archbishop Peckham issued the celebrated Constitutions of the
Synod of Oxford which are called by his name. There we find the
instruction of the people legislated for minutely.
“We order,” runs the Constitution, “that every priest having
the charge of a flock do, four times in each year (that is,
once each quarter), on one or more solemn feast days,
either himself or by some one else, instruct the people in
the vulgar language, simply and without any fantastical
admixture of subtle distinctions, in the articles of the
Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Evangelical
Precepts, the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins
with their offshoots, the seven principal virtues, and the
Seven Sacraments.”
The Synod then proceeded to set out in considerable detail each of
the points upon which the people must be instructed. Now, it is
obvious that if four times a year this law was complied with in the
spirit in which it was given, the people were very thoroughly
instructed indeed in their faith. But was this law faithfully carried out
by the clergy, and rigorously enforced by the bishops in the
succeeding centuries? That is the real question. I think that there is
ample evidence that it was. In the first place, the Constitutions of
Peckham are referred to constantly in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries as the foundation of the existing practices in the English
Church. Thus, to take a few specific instances in the middle of the
fourteenth century, the decree of a diocesan Synod orders—
 “That all rectors, vicars, or chaplains holding ecclesiastical
offices shall expound clearly and plainly to their people, on
all Sundays and feast days, the Word of God and the
Catholic faith of the Apostles; and that they shall diligently
instruct their subjects in the articles of faith, and teach
them in their native language the Apostles’ Creed, and
urge them to expound it and teach the same faith to their
children.”
Again, in a.d. 1357, Archbishop
Thoresby, of York, anxious for the
better instruction of his people,
commissioned a monk of St.
Mary’s, York, named Gatryke, to
draw out in English an exposition
of the Creed, the
Commandments, the seven
deadly sins, etc. This tract the
archbishop, as he says in his
preface, through the counsel of
his clergy, sent to all his priests—
“So that each and every one,
who under him had the charge
of souls, do openly in English,
upon Sundays teach and
preach them, that they have
cure of the law and the way to
know God Almighty. And he
commands and bids, in all that
he may, that all who have
keeping or cure under him,
enjoin their parishioners and STONE PULPIT BRACKET,
their subjects, that they hear WALPOLE ST. ANDREW,
and learn all these things, and NORFOLK
oft, either rehearse them till
they know them, and so teach
them to their children, if they any have, when they are old
enough to learn them; and that parsons and vicars and all
parish priests inquire diligently of their subjects at Lent-
time, when they come to shrift, whether they know these
things, and if it be found that they know them not, that they
enjoin them upon his behalf, and on pain of penance, to
know them. And so there be none to excuse themselves
through ignorance of them, our father, the Archbishop, of
his goodness has ordained and bidden that they be
showed openly in English amongst the flock.”

ARCHIDIACONAL VISITATION
 SACRAMENT OF MATRIMONY
To take another example: the Acts of the Synod, held by Simon
Langham at Ely in a.d. 1364, order that every parish priest frequently
preach and expound the Ten Commandments, etc., in English (in
idiomate communi), and all priests are urged to devote themselves
to the study of the Sacred Scriptures, so as to be ready “to give an
account of the hope and faith” that are in them. Further, they are to
see that the children are taught their prayers; and even adults, when
coming to confession, are to be examined as to their religious
knowledge.
Even when the rise of the Lollard heretics rendered it important that
some check should be given to general and unauthorized preaching,
this did not interfere with the ordinary work of instruction. The orders