Re: GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections Spring 2009 - Preliminary results

[john palmieri <john j5 palmieri gmail com>]

On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Dave Neary <dneary 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