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The accuracy of a voice vote
Journal article   Peer reviewed

The accuracy of a voice vote

Ingo R. Titze and Anil Palaparthi
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol.135(1), pp.362-368
01/01/2014
DOI: 10.1121/1.4837236
PMCID: PMC3985892
PMID: 24437776

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Abstract

The accuracy of a voice vote was addressed by systematically varying group size, individual voter loudness, and words that are typically used to express agreement or disagreement. Five judges rated the loudness of two competing groups in A-B comparison tasks. Acoustic analysis was performed to determine the sound energy level of each word uttered by each group. Results showed that individual voter differences in energy level can grossly alter group loudness and bias the vote. Unless some control is imposed on the sound level of individual voters, it is difficult to establish even a two-thirds majority, much less a simple majority. There is no symmetry in the bias created by unequal sound production of individuals. Soft voices do not bias the group loudness much, but loud voices do. The phonetic balance of the two words chosen (e. g., "yea" and "nay" as opposed to "aye" and "no") seems to be less of an issue. (C) 2014 Acoustical Society of America.
Acoustics Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology Life Sciences & Biomedicine Science & Technology Technology

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