Election results

[David Graham]

On Thu, 9 Aug 2007, MJ Ray wrote:
> To summarise the interesting (IMO) results posted so far:
> [...]

It should be noted that the electoral system used is likely to change
voting behaviour, so this discussion can be fairly moot.

Let's say, to take an extreme example, that, because not everyone ranked
every candidate, we can count this election with Approval Voting, a very
simple system where you simply check off everyone you approve of. We count
it with that and here are the results:

93     * Candidate E "Bdale Garbee"
90     * Candidate A "Martin Zobel-Helas"
88     * Candidate L "MJ Ray"
88     * Candidate F "Joshua D. Drake"
88     * Candidate B "Luk Claes"
87     * Candidate K "Martin 'Joey' Schulze"
87     * Candidate C "Joerg Jaspert"
86     * Candidate D "David Graham"
84     * Candidate H "Ian Jackson"
84     * Candidate I "Christel Dahlskjaer"
83     * Candidate G "Rico Gloeckner"
83     * Candidate J "Richard Hartmann"
81     * Candidate M "Robert Brockway"

The results are, like all the other systems, fairly similar to the actual
results, with me off and MJ on, and Joey and Ganneff tying for 6th, but
voting behaviour changes with the system used. Comparing one election
system's votes to another election system's results is not really a valid
comparison.

> Is it interesting that we elected the candidates who appear in list
> positions 9-13 least?  There seem to be some odd interactions between
> votes for H and K in particular, and maybe C and L, which may explain
> some of the different results.  Is SPI actually election-by-veto?
>
> Is it interesting that we elected ABCDEF?  Was there an alphabet effect?
> ;-)

This isn't terribly surprising. Putting your nomination in early helps
more people know about you, your campaign, your attitudes, and your
commitment, while putting in your nomination late, or as an overt reaction
to the existing candidates can be off-putting to voters. The former
suggests that you will not be active in board activity while the latter
suggests you may be too judgemental to make a good board member.

- -
David "cdlu" Graham - cdlu at railfan.ca
Guelph, Ontario - http://www.cdlu.net/