Re: GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections Spring 2009 - Preliminary results
On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Dan Winship wrote: > On 06/25/2009 12:30 PM, john palmieri wrote: > > If it is a disagreement on how votes should be counted then the vote is > > flawed and I propose we have a runoff between the candidates who were on > > one list but not the other. > > I'm not terribly familiar with STV and its variations, but it seems to > me that if we assume people's votes in the runoff will be generally > consistent with their votes in the original election, then the result of > the runoff would be determined as much by the choice of STV variant used > in the runoff than by the actual votes (which could more or less be > predicted ahead of time), and so this isn't really much different from > just letting the election committee retroactively declare which variant > they meant to use in the original election. > You can't assume that though. If people have a better understanding of how their votes are counted they can make a more informed decision (also if it is a matter of two name a simple popular vote would be fair which the STV would boil down to anyway). The point isn't the results - I could really care less who gets on because I think they are all good candidates who have the top votes. The point is that the results are come by from an equitable process. If there is problems in that process, well then someone got screwed illegitimately. Let's face it, we messed up by not getting the details right here. Having the committee choose a method, runnoff candidates ratify it and having a runoff might seem like an unnecessary procedural detail but it at least adds legitimacy to the vote. Let's not just brush our mistake under the rug. -- John ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections Spring 2009 - Preliminary results
2009/6/25 john palmieri : > Is it really fair if people can't agree on how it works? Seems to go > against the GNOME principle of simplicity by adding more choices to fix some > of the issues of voting. I'm all for making things more fair but I'm not > sure the complexity actually fixes things or hides the issues under a layer > of complexity. In any case the final decision should be well documented on > how it was reached. If at all possible, done by hand showing the work at > each step. I'm not familiar with STV but I did read something here and there within the past two days. From what I understood the issue is about transferring surplus votes from candidates who passed the quota. Say the candidate has 60 votes (first choice in the ballot) and the quota to be elected is 40 then 20 surplus votes have to be transferred (i.e. switched to the second preference in the ballot). How do you pick those 20 votes? You have basically two choices (and *several* variants): - with Random Transfer, 20 ballots are picked randomly (assuming those 60 votes are already random you can just pick last 20 received, first 20, or more complex randomizing methods). The thing is that this way you completely lose the second order preference of the remaining 40 ballots and assume the 20 ones you randomly picked are a representative enough sample. - with Fractional Transfer you don't transfer a sample but *all* the 60 ballots with a fractional weight that makes them sum up to the surplus (20 in the example). This way you're caring about all preferences of all ballots, giving a clearly fairer representation of the electors' desires. The only downside of this method it that it is more complex, to apply not to understand (i.e. you cannot count ballots by hand), but given that we're already using a software to count the ballots I really don't see the point. In my opinion, if the original decision of the election committee is not clear (and "we wanted to use the same method of Maemo" IMHO is not a decision), we should just use the fairest method, which is undoubtedly fractional transfer. Quoting from http://www.openstv.org/votingmethods/random: "It is important to note is that changing the order of the ballots can change the outcome of the election. In reality, this will only happen in a close election. However, many people find this aspect disturbing." I don't speak and understand english very well but from what I understood about the meaning of "close election" ours certainly is, we're electing 7 candidates over 10 with 211 ballots, there is no need to do the math to understand that the order of the ballots can change the results. Random transfer might work well when you have big numbers but can easily be unfair in a little election like this. Filippo PS. In case it wasn't clear, this is a +1 to Dave's challenge :-P ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections Spring 2009 - Preliminary results
I too think the election committee should just decide. (From board discussions, I'm pretty confident they wanted to do it however Maemo does it, but at this point I think the election committee should decide.) Stormy On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 10:58 AM, Dan Winship wrote: > On 06/25/2009 12:30 PM, john palmieri wrote: > > If it is a disagreement on how votes should be counted then the vote is > > flawed and I propose we have a runoff between the candidates who were on > > one list but not the other. > > I'm not terribly familiar with STV and its variations, but it seems to > me that if we assume people's votes in the runoff will be generally > consistent with their votes in the original election, then the result of > the runoff would be determined as much by the choice of STV variant used > in the runoff than by the actual votes (which could more or less be > predicted ahead of time), and so this isn't really much different from > just letting the election committee retroactively declare which variant > they meant to use in the original election. > > -- Dan > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections Spring 2009 - Preliminary results
On 06/25/2009 12:30 PM, john palmieri wrote: > If it is a disagreement on how votes should be counted then the vote is > flawed and I propose we have a runoff between the candidates who were on > one list but not the other. I'm not terribly familiar with STV and its variations, but it seems to me that if we assume people's votes in the runoff will be generally consistent with their votes in the original election, then the result of the runoff would be determined as much by the choice of STV variant used in the runoff than by the actual votes (which could more or less be predicted ahead of time), and so this isn't really much different from just letting the election committee retroactively declare which variant they meant to use in the original election. -- Dan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections Spring 2009 - Preliminary results
Is it just not a good year to have elections? :) behdad On 06/25/2009 12:30 PM, john palmieri wrote: On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Dave Neary mailto:dne...@gnome.org>> wrote: Hi, The way forward seems clear to me - the membership committee decides what counting method will be used, announces it, and we count the election according to that means. There doesn't need to be a crisis here. Deciding on the correct method after the elections seems a bit off to me. A member who voted should know exactly how their vote is going to be counted before the ballot is cast. If different methods reach different conclusions then that is a crisis because the membership committee would be free to choose the one which fits their agenda the most (not that I feel there is an agenda but the possibility leaves doubt on the validity of the results). If in fact it is a bug in OpenSTV and not a disagreement on how votes should be counted then that is an acceptable reason to move forward with certifying the vote. If it is a disagreement on how votes should be counted then the vote is flawed and I propose we have a runoff between the candidates who were on one list but not the other. Going forward we must make sure to document the complete procedure used in detail and make sure it doesn't fluctuate from election to election. I do suggest having test cases we can run through any software used to guarantee results stay consistent from year to year. -- John ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections Spring 2009 - Preliminary results
On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Dave Neary wrote: > Hi, > > The way forward seems clear to me - the membership committee decides what > counting method will be used, announces it, and we count the election > according to that means. There doesn't need to be a crisis here. > > Deciding on the correct method after the elections seems a bit off to me. A member who voted should know exactly how their vote is going to be counted before the ballot is cast. If different methods reach different conclusions then that is a crisis because the membership committee would be free to choose the one which fits their agenda the most (not that I feel there is an agenda but the possibility leaves doubt on the validity of the results). If in fact it is a bug in OpenSTV and not a disagreement on how votes should be counted then that is an acceptable reason to move forward with certifying the vote. If it is a disagreement on how votes should be counted then the vote is flawed and I propose we have a runoff between the candidates who were on one list but not the other. Going forward we must make sure to document the complete procedure used in detail and make sure it doesn't fluctuate from election to election. I do suggest having test cases we can run through any software used to guarantee results stay consistent from year to year. -- John ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections Spring 2009 - Preliminary results
Hi, john palmieri wrote: Is it really fair if people can't agree on how it works? Seems to go against the GNOME principle of simplicity by adding more choices to fix some of the issues of voting. I'm all for making things more fair but I'm not sure the complexity actually fixes things or hides the issues under a layer of complexity. In any case the final decision should be well documented on how it was reached. If at all possible, done by hand showing the work at each step. The way forward seems clear to me - the membership committee decides what counting method will be used, announces it, and we count the election according to that means. There doesn't need to be a crisis here. I have contacted the OpenSTV developers about the issues with transfers which I noticed in the distribution of Vincent's surplus. If there are bugs that need fixing on OpenSTV, we should make sure that gets done too. Counting/checking the election by hand is not impossible with only 221 votes - in fact it's quite easy with the random transfer surplus distribution method. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member dne...@gnome.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections Spring 2009 - Preliminary results
Is it really fair if people can't agree on how it works? Seems to go against the GNOME principle of simplicity by adding more choices to fix some of the issues of voting. I'm all for making things more fair but I'm not sure the complexity actually fixes things or hides the issues under a layer of complexity. In any case the final decision should be well documented on how it was reached. If at all possible, done by hand showing the work at each step. On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 12:29 PM, Michael Meeks wrote: > > On Wed, 2009-06-24 at 10:11 +0200, Dave Neary wrote: > > You just announced the results based on first-past-the-post, when the > > elections were to be run using preferential voting, with single > > transferable vote and fractional surplus transfer. > > Ah ! the famous 'Meek' method (no relation); can be rather a rabbit > Warren of complexity this thing - though it's clearly a fairer way of > doing things: as I recall the Open-Solaris board specified this form of > STV in it's bylaws which seemed sensible. > >Fun, > >Michael. > > -- > michael.me...@novell.com <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot > > > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections Spring 2009 - Preliminary results
On Wed, 2009-06-24 at 10:11 +0200, Dave Neary wrote: > You just announced the results based on first-past-the-post, when the > elections were to be run using preferential voting, with single > transferable vote and fractional surplus transfer. Ah ! the famous 'Meek' method (no relation); can be rather a rabbit Warren of complexity this thing - though it's clearly a fairer way of doing things: as I recall the Open-Solaris board specified this form of STV in it's bylaws which seemed sensible. Fun, Michael. -- michael.me...@novell.com <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
