Re: [WDDM] WDDM BoardElections results

["M. Kolar" <wddm(at)mkolar.org>]

Dear Nicolas,
   1. Because our executive board has no decision power, the details of
the election process were not very important at this moment. More
important is the willingness of the candidates to serve on the Board.
Rotation of all WDDM members on the Board would be a better method in
ideal circumstance. Because this is the first Board, I saw the election
more as a community building exercise, as a way of making sure that the
people who will be starting the whole process have enough trust among
the members. Also as an opportunity to introduce the Range Voting.
   2. Criticism of  some organizational problems is justified and
registered. A reminder was actually sent to all 3 days before the end of
voting in which all additional candidates, except for the last one, were
already listed.  One improvement was already made: when an additional
(write-in) candidate is added, all WDDM members are immediately notified
by e-mail and invited to possibly adjust their vote.
   3. With only 6 voters, any method would give results that vary quite
a lot if a vote is changed somewhat. (And so because of the lower voter
turnout, the demonstration of Range Voting sort of backfired.)
   4. Range voting is really OK as it was implemented, with Average
Rating and the Quorum. (Remember that you yourself use in Enitiative.org
Average Rating in range voting with 6-point scale, 0 to 5. 0 to 99 scale
is much better than that).  The fact that all voters voted for a
candidate does not mean that he must win. If all of them disliked him,
they would give him a 0, and so he would end up last with no points at
all. Average Rating is needed because people are encourage to vote No
Opinion on all candidates they they do not know. Quorum is necessary to
make sure that only candidates who are known to a large number of voters
are elected. Your 2 "friends" would hardly be able to win already with
10 voters participating
I do not want to repeat here all the arguments for range voting  in
detail. You can find them all extensively explained at
http://rangevoting.org
   5. I envision using the Range Voting here at WDDM more for
determining common positions of issues.

Mirek

Nicolas Durand wrote:

> Dear all,
>
>
>
> I’ve been away from an internet connection for 10 days now and
> discover these results and would like to make a few humble comments.
>
>
>
> 1)     this “Range voting” is a little confusing, especially with this
> small number of participants, especially if people are allowed to
> register after the start of elections, especially if the winners are
> the ones with the highest “Average rating” and not the “Sum” for a
> number of reasons:
>
> a)     someone who had LESS votes than another can be elected at his
> place, e.g. Richard Moore or Miroslav, who were elected, even though
> George had more votes (as given below). In fact, 6 people (everybody)
> voted FOR George, and still, he comes third-last…
>
> b)     2 “friends” could come first a the elections: they just had to
> register just before the deadline and vote for each other: they would
> have had 198 points (2x99), which is about the quorum and an average
> rating of 99.
>
> c)     This brings me to the next item: by giving 1 “point” to
> someone, you actually put him down (by lowering his average). This
> might be a technique, but needs to be explicated very clearly to avoid
> people thinking “I’ll give him just some points, but not too many”.
> Actually, in this case, anyone giving less than 62 points (the lowest
> average of the top 3) has put this candidate DOWN. Not very logic in
> my opinion.
>
> 2)     In my eyes, the whole voting process and timeline needs to be
> revisited. I did not vote (partly because I was away for 10 days,
> which virtually never happens, but still, in a real democracy,
> everyone should be able to vote). This is certainly not to dismiss
> Mirek’s great job of putting this together; it is just to improve the
> process, especially from a frustrated voter who could not vote… ;)
>
> The fact that only 6 people (is that really so?) voted, which is
> **less** than the number of candidates (8) is quite significant… ;)
>
> Suggested improvements:
>
> a.      Announce the voting period well in advance (e.g. “Voting will
> be from May 9 to May 18, midnight Pacific time”), so that people can
> make sure they don’t miss it. I would give at least 2 weeks of voting
> time, to allow people to be away of an internet connection for a few
> days without too much stress.
>
> b.      The subject of the email announcing the vote must be extremely
> clear. This one was “Latest news from WDDM”. It should be “WDDM –
> Elections are now open!”
>
> c.      All material (Candidate names, voting period and methods,
> etc.) must be in this email
>
> d.      One reminder should come after one week. Another one should
> come 24h before elections close.
>
>
>
> These were my 2 cents… I hope this helps.
>
>
>
> Take care,
>
>
>
> Nico
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:* WDDM webmaster
> *Sent:* vendredi, 18. mai 2007 07:01
> *To:* wddm@world-wide-democracy.net
> *Cc:* Richard Moore
> *Subject:* [WDDM] WDDM BoardElections results
>
>
>
> Dear all:
>    Below is the copy of the elections results from the online voting
> page. As you can see, six members voted online. No numerical votes
> (ratings) came by e-mail. Therefore, there is nothing to add to the
> results below. However, Filia, Jiri and Lee sent in mail-in votes
> formulated such that they voted for (endorsed) whoever were willing to
> be active on the Board.
>     If we arrange the results by the average ratings (from the
> highest), we get: for those who got the quorum this order:
> Richard Moore
> Mark Antell
> Miroslav Kolar
> George Kokkas
> Nicholas Durand
>
>      Richard, are you ready to take up this position?
>
>      Mark, George and Nicholas expressed willingness to serve on the
> Board before the elections. Are you still interested?
>
>      As for me, as I wrote in an earlier e-mail, I'd prefer to be only
> the webmaster for the next while. So let's wait for the replies of
> others first.
>
> Mirek
>
> ------------------
>
>
>         *: Elections and Votings :: *You are WddmAdmin
>         WddmAdmin cannot vote
>
>
>         *WDDM Executive Board Elections    *
>
> Range (0..99); secret (encrypted); voter ID not scrambled
>
> *Number of voters: 6*
> Winning candidates are those with the highest 'Average rating' out of
> all who achieved a quorum <http://rangevoting.org/WhyHalf.html>, i.e.,
> their 'Sum of all ratings' is not smaller than the quorum, which
> equals one half of the greatest 'Sum of all ratings' achieved by any
> candidate. Quorum is *194.5*. Candidates with a quorum are marked in
> blue. The 3 winning candidates in green.
>
> *Candidate*
>
>
>
> *No. of numeric ratings*
>
>
>
> *Sum of all ratings*
>
>
>
> *Average rating*
>
> George Kokkas
>
>
>
> 6
>
>
>
> *294*
>
>
>
> 49.00
>
> Mark Antell
>
>
>
> 6
>
>
>
> *389*
>
>
>
> *64.83*
>
> Nicolas Durand
>
>
>
> 5
>
>
>
> *242*
>
>
>
> 48.40
>
> Vijayaraghavan Padmanabhan (PVR)
>
>
>
> 4
>
>
>
> 158
>
>
>
> 39.50
>
> Miroslav Kolář
>
>
>
> 4
>
>
>
> *248*
>
>
>
> *62.00*
>
> Richard Moore
>
>
>
> 4
>
>
>
> *291*
>
>
>
> *72.75*
>
> Doug Everingham
>
>
>
> 3
>
>
>
> 162
>
>
>
> 54.00
>
> bruce eggum
>
>
>
> 2
>
>
>
> 103
>
>
>
> 51.50