Open Stack

Great summaries from Monty and co and Simon. Thank you!

Some questions....

--

"The OpenStack Board of Directors wishes to consider a resolution to call a
special meeting of
members to amend the bylaws of the OpenStack Foundation to remove the
“cumulative voting”
defined process for election of the 8 individual member Directors, and
provide for an “order of
preference” voting system using either the Condorcet method or the Single
Transferable Vote
(STV) method of voting."

I may have missed this decision in earlier meetings but are we not going to
ask the electorate if they want to change the voting system?

--

"The Condorcet method is an “order of preference” or “ranked” voting system
that is used in certain
international government, not-for-profit, and other association elections."

This is referenced in "use by others" further in, but I cant find any
evidence this voting method is used in anything but for a very few small
organisations.

--

Will the ballot papers be generated in random order to avoid donkey vote
issues?

--
For Condorcet and STV we are proposing the voter does not need mark more
than one candidate if they choose? What risks does this have? Any block
voting risk?

In STV in Govt elections here you are required to mark all candidates no
matter how many, or you can vote "above the line", meaning you mark one
candidate. The preferences of that candidate are spread according to their
pre-determined voting card. This has been (ab)used for "preference swapping"
here where minor parties have arranged to give each other preferences to
boost their position.




> -----Original Message-----
> From: Monty Taylor [mailto:mordred at inaugust.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, 16 October 2013 10:14 AM
> To: Todd Moore; Tim Bell; Alan Clark; 程辉; Jonathan Bryce; Mark McLoughlin;
> Radcliffe, Mark; Simon Anderson; Tristan Goode
> Subject: Condorcet Explanation - Next Draft
>
> Here is the latest version from me, with help from Thierry, Troy, Jim and
> Jeremy.
> I've included it in OpenDocument and in PDF, depending on what works
> better for
> folks. I have included in it a human-readable description of the Schulze
> method.
> There is a very similar one here:
>
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2002/03/msg00249.html
>
> Which I drew from as well. I think that the debian mailing list
> description is clearer,
> but the one in the document I'm sending felt potentially more ultimately
> clear for
> lawyers. Mark - could you look at both (possibly, I know you're busy) and
> tell me
> which one you think conveys the information in the clearest and most
> defensible
> manner - or more importantly, if there is enough detail there that you
> feel confident
> that we can work together to put together a good enough legal description
> using
> lawyer words? (I'm pretty sure you're always going to be better at that
> than I)
>
> Salient specific points from mailing list discussions today (IMO):
>
> - STV is not synonymous with enforcing ranking. The ASF (not that I really
> care
> what they do) do not enforce complete ranking, and jimjag reports that
> none of the
> STV systems they investigated enforced this.
>
> Thierry wrote an excellent mail. If you didn't see Thierry's email, I'll
> copy the good
> bits there, since I think it summarizes the design choices we're making
> very well -
> which comes down to:
>
> Both systems are great, one is good at providing proportional
> representation for
> factions within the community, one is good at finding consensus candidates
> without
> respecting factions across the whole community.
>
> I think it we can reach agreement on which of those two things we want to
> do, then
> we the choice between the methods is actually quite cut and dried (turns
> out, they're
> both pretty awesome at what they do) I believe that broad community
> consensus
> ignoring faction is the design point that's more important to us. I have
> been wrong
> before though.
>
> Thanks!
> Monty
>
>
> Text from Thierry:
> """
> Ranked voting systems are intrinsically superior to first-past-the-post or
> cumulative
> systems because they let you express a complex preference, and adding more
> candidates doesn't disrupt your ability to express that preference. In
> ranked voting
> systems, more choice is actually always be
>
> That said, all ranked voting systems are not created equal. You should
> pick one
> based on the intended results.
>
> STV is designed for proportional representation of factions. It favors
> candidates
> coming from those factions at the expense of consensus candidates.
>
> Condorcet favors consensus candidates and "natural" winners (the Condorcet
> winner), at the expense of giving each faction its representant.
>
> In a very simplified and inaccurate summary, given B>A>C and C>A>B
> ballots, STV
> tends to pick B&C while Condorcet tends to pick A.
>
> There is not a "bad" system and a "good" system, choosing between them
> depends
> on the intended results. If the election is all about factions and giving
> them fair
> representation, then STV is better. If the election is about individuals
> and picking the
> most consensual candidates, then Condorcet is better.
>
> I tend to think that for this specific election (directors representing
> the individual
> members, not any faction), Condorcet would yield better results.
> """