Back to The Defiant Few ←A Fair Vote Can Still Leave Someone Out.
Giving everyone an equal say does not make a decision inclusive when some people are choosing between preferences and someone else is choosing whether they can participate at all.
Five people, two restaurants, one group chat. In this imaginary outing, four people prefer the upstairs place. The fifth cannot manage the stairs. Everyone gets one vote, the upstairs place wins, and the process congratulates itself on being fair. Democracy has spoken. Apparently, it would also like a table by the window.
I am interested in the little trick hiding inside that vote. Four people were choosing where they would most enjoy eating. One was choosing whether eating with the group was possible. We called all five answers preferences, counted them equally and treated the result as if nothing had been lost in translation. The arithmetic is fine. The question we asked it to settle is not.