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<p><font size="2" face="sans-serif">The election committee met this morning to finalize education material for the board.</font><br>
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<font size="2" face="sans-serif">In attendance:</font><br>
<font size="2" face="Default Sans Sarif">Troy Toman</font><br>
<font size="2" face="Default Sans Sarif">Alan Clark</font><br>
<font size="2" face="Default Sans Sarif">Tim Bell</font><br>
<font size="2" face="Default Sans Sarif">Simon Anderson</font><br>
<font size="2" face="Default Sans Sarif">Tristan Goode</font><br>
<font size="2" face="Default Sans Sarif">Mark McLoughlin</font><br>
<font size="2" face="Default Sans Sarif">Monty Taylor</font><br>
<font size="2" face="Default Sans Sarif">Mark Raddcliffe</font><br>
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<font size="2" face="Default Sans Sarif">The group reviewed the documents that will be provided to the board for Thursday meeting. The Condorcet method was discussed first. Mark requested that we continue to look for examples of where it is used in elections that seat a board in a corporate sense, and not for technical direction. We asked Monty to better delineate his usage examples in the body of document in this regard. The detail was considered appropriate to present to the board, but will need to be augmented if selected. </font><br>
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<font size="2" face="Default Sans Sarif">Simon then discussed and described his write up of the STV system. We questioned Simon on the topic of would the electorate have to rank all candidates to cast a vote. Simon indicated that this would not be the case as it might diminish turn out, and Todd indicated it might also create issues with a bias towards the order of names on the ballot. It was requested that Simon better describe what happens to the remaining votes when a voter chooses to not rank all but one or a few of the candidates. It was observed that in the Condorcet system a block of 51% could control the entire slates results, and Simon was asked to add similar text to the effects of blocks with the STV process.</font><br>
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<font size="2" face="Default Sans Sarif">Some discussion was had on the desirability of blocks gaining representation under any system. There are two sides to the argument. Condorcet provides the voters with the opportunity to select the </font><br>
<font size="2" face="Default Sans Sarif">winners </font><font size="2" face="Default Sans Sarif">by a method that yields the "best compromise" candidate, the one that the largest majority will find to be least disagreeable, even if not their favorite. STV can still allow blocks to come together in a more straight forward manner to gain representation. Simon pointed out that it may even be desirable, as the organization has grown, to see voters from world wide geographies gain representation in this fashion. While the concerns over corporate dominance have persisted, growth in the population has cut the share of the electorate from major corporations down to be only 10% of the eligible vote. Any election will have an edge to the most visible highest contributing members of the community.</font><br>
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<font size="2" face="Default Sans Sarif">We then discussed the board meeting. Todd will open up the discussion with a brief summary of why we have returned, highlight the 3 systems up for consideration (including existing) and then give 15 minutes to Monty and then Simon for a brief description period and then we will open it up to questions and go into any philosophical discussions at the conclusion with a charge to the board members to prepare for a vote on their preference at the Nov. 4 meeting in Hong Kong. </font><br>
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<font size="2" face="Default Sans Sarif">Final materials are due to Todd, Alan and Jonathan by 5pm CDT as we wish the board to have 24 hours to review the material.</font><br>
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<font size="2" face="Default Sans Sarif">As usual comments and corrections welcome.</font><br>
<font size="2" face="sans-serif"><br>
<br>
Todd M. Moore<br>
<br>
Director, Interoperability and Partnerships<br>
<br>
11501 Burnet Rd. MS 9035H014 <br>
Austin, TX , 78758. (512) 286-7643 (tie-line 363)<br>
tmmoore@us.ibm.com</font></body></html>