Re: GNOME Foundation Elections - Official list of candidates

[James Henstridge <james jamesh id au>]

Danilo Šegan wrote:

> 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)?
>  
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).

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.