If you call the process on [[Votes for deletion]] "voting", then I'm all for it of course. That page doesn't operate in the way "Here's a question, who says Yes or No?", but instead "Here's a question, who has an argument for or against?". I have rarely seen people adding their names to a "vote" without providing a reason, and I have never seen anybody producing a tally there by simply counting names.
My impression is that pages which quickly gather "votes" (and yes, there are "votes" in the sense of a plain "~~~~") are deleted sooner than those which do not. Sysops are left to guess whether or not a page has received enough review from others or not (if a page has been up for a long time, does that mean there are no objections to deletion?), making these deletion decisions essentially arbitrary, which is reflected by the wording on the page that gives only rough recommendations. That you, as a mathematician, are satisfied by this imprecise process is a mystery to me. Furthermore, pages where only one person expresses dissent are often (but not always) not deleted for weeks. Some sysops are bold in determining what the "consensus" / vote result is, others aren't.
So, it's a bit like voting on crack: Decisions are eventually made based on the tabulated opinions, but the criteria are neither properly defined nor consistently followed. "Votes for deletion" is a mess because of it. If we used organized voting, that page would be down to 5 recent entries at most. We would set a high threshold, of course, something like 70-80%, but *everyone* could help in getting that page cut down to size simply by checking which entries still need votes and adding theirs. As is, the deletion process is an excellent example for the schizophrenia of "consensus" "decision making".
Regards,
Erik