At Issue In a Massachusetts Town, the Value of Two-Thirds

An anonymous reader writes "In Truro, Massachusetts (a town on Cape Cod), a zoning decision came up for vote, where the results were 136 for, 70 against. The vote required 2/3 approval to pass. The Town Clerk and Town Accountant believe that since .66 * 206 is less than 136, the vote passes. However, an 'anonymous caller' noted that a more accurate value of 2/3 would require 137 (or perhaps even 138 votes) for the measure to be considered passed. The MA Secretary of State and State Attorney General are hard at work to resolve this issue." Updated 20100422 23:55 by timothy: Oops! This story is a year old (rounding up), which I didn't spot quickly enough. Hope they've got it all worked out in the meantime.

basic math

[Anonymous Coward]

Two thirds of this is approx 137.3. The vote must be greater than or equal to 137.3 to pass, than means 138 is required, unless you have fractional people.

Re:Learn 2 math

[amicusNYCL]

Significant figures are important. In this case, the 2/3rds rule, being a constant, MUST be taken to at least 3 digits.

Uh.. how about not expressing an infinitely repeating number as a finite value?

(206 * 2) / 3 = 137.33~ = 138 votes to meet the minimum

Not that hard. Significant digits don't come into play. The value of two thirds is 2/3, not some decimal value.

Re:Fractions

[ferrocene]

137 votes does not give you 2/3rds. It is less than 2/3rds. If the law requires 2/3rds, in what situation would 137/206 be sufficient?

Put it this way - put the equation into C++ and compile and see how it comes out.

if( 137/206 >= 2/3 )
        votepass;

You need 138 for that equation to be true.

Re:not quite 2/3

[siwelwerd]

Further, 137/206 is still less than 2/3. So they in fact needed 138 to pass. This is why I tell my students to never use decimal approximations; simply use the exact number.

This is a year old...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Date on the article is April 30th, 2009.

So, does anyone know if basic math skills prevailed?

Re:Fractions

[Imagix]

Put it this way - put the equation into C++ and compile and see how it comes out. if( 137/206 >= 2/3 ) votepass;

Nope. That will always evaluate true. (You're invoking integral division, not real numbers.) You wanted:
if (137.0 / 206.0 >= 2.0/3.0 ) votepass;

Re:basic math

[QRDeNameland]

...unless you have fractional people.

Well, that's not exactly unprecedented in American politics.

three fifths of all other Persons [wikipedia.org]

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Counting people? Round up!

[Bigjeff5]

pft, clearly you've been taught wrong. 2/3 is really .666666. Duh.

You're both wrong, 2/3 is two divided by three. To make 2/3 of any number, you multiply it by two and divide it by three. It's not hard, and no decimal will ever be as accurate.

The 100% accurate answer is 137 and 1/3.

Re:This is a year old...

[Anthony Rosequist]

Yup [wickedlocal.com]

Voters did approve one of four petitioned zoning articles, one that would require cottage colonies to be in operation for at least three years before they can be turned into condominium ownership. Zoning articles require a two-thirds majority and the first vote was close, counted as 139 in favor and 64 opposed. A recount was held that was tallied at 136-70 and declared to be passed by Town Clerk Cynthia Slade, utilizing a multiplier of 0.66 to determine two-thirds, the figure the town has always used. Unfortunately, this vote was so close that the inaccurate fraction made the difference, and several months later the attorney general’s office negated the approval as not meeting the two-thirds threshold.

The Mass. AG did resolve this

[NewToNix]

"one zoning amendment which the voters passed in April - to require cottage colonies to operate as such for three years before conversion to condos is permitted - was reversed on a vote count challenge by a recent decision of the Mass. Attorney General's office. "

From:
http://www.tnrta.org/docs/TNRTA-nwsltr-Fall09.pdf [tnrta.org]

Too easy perhaps

[stomv]

the majority must have more than twice as many as the minority

No. A majority vote requires 50% + epsilon to pass. However, a 2/3 vote typically requires that the majority must have at least twice as many as the minority, not "more than twice as many". Which is to say, if there are three people voting, only two voting yea passes the bill, not three.

Re:Counting people? Round up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Y'all screwed up.

2/3 majority in parliamentary procedure is taken as meaning there are at least twice as many votes for than against. That avoids the whole fractional vote issue, which is a nonsensical concept.

In this case there were 70 against, which means there would have to be at least 140 for. Thus the motion fails.

C'mon, people. This thing has to have happened more than a few times in the course of history.

Re:Counting people? Round up!

[arkenian]

Fucking duh, Massachusetts.

One feels obliged to note that because massachussetts is one of the only states in the world that has ANY practicing actual democracies (the federal government is a republic) . . . the state usually doesn't interfere in this sort of thing. Welcome to town government by the people. Usually it works better than this, but, actually, often it doesn't.