Editing Majority rule (section)

=== Arguments for limitations ===

==== Minority rights ====

A super-majority rule actually empowers the minority, making it stronger (at least through its veto) than the majority. McGann argued that when only one of multiple minorities is protected by the super-majority rule (same as seen in simple plurality elections systems), so the protection is for the status quo, rather than for the faction that supports it.

Another possible way to prevent tyranny is to elevate certain rights as [[Natural rights and legal rights|inalienable]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EMB-F6Forx8C&pg=PA223 |page=223 |title=Democracy and the Rule of Law |isbn=9780521532662 |last1=Przeworski |first1=Adam |last2=Maravall |first2=José María |date=2003-07-21 |publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref> Thereafter, any decision that targets such a right might be [[majoritarian]], but it would not be legitimate, because it would violate the requirement for [[civil rights|equal rights]]. 
<!--Erroneous priorities

The erroneous priorities effect (EPE) states that groups that act upon what they initially consider important almost always misplace their effort. Such groups have not yet determined which factors are most influential. Only after identifying those factors can they take effective action. EPE was articulated by K.M. Dye at the [[Food and Drug Administration]].<ref>Dye, K.M. and Conaway, D.S. (1999) 'Lessons learned from five years of application of the cogniscope', Approach to the Food and Drug Administration, CWA Report, Interactive Management Consultants, Paoli.</ref><ref name="collective wisdom">{{cite book |last=Dye |first=K. |title=How People Harness their Collective Wisdom and Power |publisher=Information Age Pub. |year=1999 |isbn=9781593114824 |editor-last=Christakis |editor-first=A.N. |pages=166–169 |chapter=Dye's law of requisite evolution of observations |editor-last2=Bausch |editor-first2=K. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k3vvYZLBhS8C}}</ref> This discovery led to the recognition that even with good intentions, effective action requires a different paradigm for language and voting.<ref>Flanagan, T.R., and Christakis, A.N. (2010) The Talking Point: Creating an Environment for ExploringComplex Meaning, Information Age Publishing, Greenwich, CT.</ref> EPE is a negative consequence of phenomena such as [[spreadthink]] and [[groupthink]]. Effective priorities are dependent on recognizing the influence patterns of global interdependencies and are defeated by EPE when priorities simply aggregate individual stakeholder's subjective voting that does not consider those interdependencies. Dye's work resulted in the discovery of the 6th law of the science of structured dialogic design, namely that "Learning occurs in a dialogue as the observers search for influence relationships among the members of a set of observations."<ref name="collective wisdom" />-->

==== Instability ====

Some [[Social choice theorist|social choice theorists]] have argued [[Cyclic tie|cycling]] leads to debilitating instability.<ref name="Tyranny"/> [[James M. Buchanan|Buchanan]] and [[Gordon Tullock|Tullock]] note that [[unanimity]] is the only decision rule that guarantees [[Pareto efficiency|economic efficiency]] and eliminates the possibility of cycling in all cases.<ref name="Tyranny" />