Re: Endorsements one by one [was Re: Endorsing David Neary]

[Bill Haneman <Bill Haneman Sun COM>]

Dominic Lachowicz wrote:

> > Well that's totally against the spirit of voting. Current counts may
> > change people's idea and might get them affected and they would vote
> > strategically instead of on their own free will.
> >    
>
> I'm sure that a large percentage of foundation memebers voted
> strategically; they just did so blindly and of their own free will.
>
> I don't know about other countries, but during elections in the US,
> precincts report back data as they process it, and that data is
> broadcast on the news. They'll say "55% of people voted for candidate
> X and 40% for candidate Y with 20% of the votes counted so far".
>  
I don't believe that these counts are made public until after the polls 
in the areas being reported on have closed; only "exit polls" (which are 
by nature unofficial) are allowed up until that time.

Even such exit polls, or reporting of one time-zone's reports before 
polls in another area have closed, are controversial.  Most democracy 
advocates seem to believe that they are harmful.

regards

Bill

> Whether this is useful, harmful, or just airtime filler, I don't know.
>
> The sociologist in me would be interested in seeing a histogram of
> when people voted. My intuition is that the 2 week voting period is
> longer than it needs to be, though we'll likely (always) see a surge
> of voting towards the end.