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

[john palmieri <john j5 palmieri gmail com>]

On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Dan Winship <danw gnome org> wrote:

On 06/25/2009 12:30 PM, john palmieri wrote:

> 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.

I'm not terribly familiar with STV and its variations, but it seems to
me that if we assume people's votes in the runoff will be generally
consistent with their votes in the original election, then the result of
the runoff would be determined as much by the choice of STV variant used
in the runoff than by the actual votes (which could more or less be
predicted ahead of time), and so this isn't really much different from
just letting the election committee retroactively declare which variant
they meant to use in the original election.

You can't assume that though.  If people have a better understanding of how their votes are counted they can make a more informed decision (also if it is a matter of two name a simple popular vote would be fair which the STV would boil down to anyway).  The point isn't the results - I could really care less who gets on because I think they are all good candidates who have the top votes.  The point is that the results are come by from an equitable process.  If there is problems in that process, well then someone got screwed illegitimately.  

Let's face it, we messed up by not getting the details right here.  Having the committee choose a method, runnoff candidates ratify it and having a runoff might seem like an unnecessary procedural detail but it at least adds legitimacy to the vote. Let's not just brush our mistake under the rug.

 --
John