ABSTRACT
Under sequential binary procedure of the sort used by committees, a voting agenda specifies the ‘motions’ or ‘questions’ that are put to a vote and the order in which these votes occur. This is equivalent to saying that the agenda specifies the alternatives that are possible voting outcomes and the particular sequence of votes by which this set is winnowed down to a final outcome. Under parliamentary voting of the sequential binary type, the number of votes taken is typically equal to the number of proposals made, as each proposal generates a ‘question* and there is a vote on each question. The number of votes thus typically falls short of the number of alternatives. It is useful to have some general method for representing the structure of sequential binary voting agendas. Farquharson devised a convenient tool for describing a wide class of voting procedures, including all those of the sequential binary type, which people call the agenda tree.
