Danilo Šegan wrote:
With the current voting system, at least 2 of the Novell candidates will not be elected. Any votes for the least popular 2 Novell candidates will have no effect on the result (the candidates would get knocked out and nothing would happen to their votes).Or am I somehow misunderstanding "Ranked Ballot", and this would somehow have particular effect on a case of 6 candidates out of which only four can be chosen, compared to anybody else (and this assumed relation is not the same as with current voting system, since Alan somehow pointed out that they would gain something in particular)?
If you had a good idea about which Novell candidates were least popular, you'd be better off voting for someone else even if you preferred those candidates. This is an example of the vote counting system encouraging people to vote differently to their real preferences (ie. tactical voting).
Most vote counting schemes that use ranked ballots can handle this sort of candidate elimination easier. Since the ballot ranks all candidates, they still reflect the voter's intentions if you remove a candidate during counting.
James.