Re: time to (re)consider preferential voting?

["Quim Gil" <qgil gnome org>]

On Feb 17, 2008 1:47 AM, Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org> wrote:

> Maybe I'm the only one, but I don't really see the point.

Normally people have preferences over candidates, even between the
ones getting their votes. Proposing a preferential system makes sense.

> For the board elections, we are electing seven people,
> and we each get to cast up to seven votes.  I don't
> think we've ever seen the list of candidates unfairly
> cut due to non-preferential voting.

I bet many of us vote _strongly_ for certain candidates and are happy
to vote _also_ others. In case of close results (and we had them
around the 7th position in the last years) this system might give
preference to those candidates _strongly_ supported by a sector of the
membership, probably in exchange of candidates voted by many, although
not that effusively.

Perhaps this gives better chances to commited newcomers or specialists
in a single area. I think all in all would help having more radical
changes from board to board if there are interesting newcomers.

> Any preferential voting systems is going to make the
> voting process more difficult.  If I had had to order
> my votes in previous elections, I'm sure it would have
> been mostly arbitrary.  If it's not solving any real
> problems, why bother?

I don't think many people has the same opinion over the seven
candidates is voting. Even if it wouldn't make that difference in the
final results I think it's worth using it. It makes you think more
about who are you voting and who you really want to see in the board.
I don't see the big effort of doing this once a year...

-- 
Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com