Re: Call for Votes - 2018 SPI board elections

This is a formal announcement that voting for the 2018 Board member
election has begun at 00:00 UTC tonight.

There are 4 candidates for 3 posts.

Voting is only open to SPI contributing members.

To vote, please go to the following link to cast your ballot:
https://members.spi-inc.org/vote/15

You can change your ballot as many times as you want until the close
of voting at 2018-07-26 23:59 UTC.

For full information about this election, including the names and
platforms of the candidates and other related information, please see:
http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/votes/2018-board-election/

Results will be announced on Friday, 27th July 2018.

Martin Michlmayr
President, Software in the Public Interest, Inc.

Martin,

The ballot explains how the votes will be counted (ScottishSTV) but not what does and what does not constitute a valid ballot submission. Presumably it is some combination of the letters standing for the candidates on the ballot, but that’s me guessing rather than knowing or being instructed. Also, what is the effect of leaving off one or more of the candidates from the ballot altogether. Will these be interpreted as least preference or no preference.

-hilmar

> On Jul 13, 2018, at 10:28 AM, Martin Michlmayr <tbm(at)cyrius(dot)com> wrote:
>
> This is a formal announcement that voting for the 2018 Board member
> election has begun at 00:00 UTC tonight.
>
> There are 4 candidates for 3 posts.
>
> Voting is only open to SPI contributing members.
>
> To vote, please go to the following link to cast your ballot:
> https://members.spi-inc.org/vote/15
>
> You can change your ballot as many times as you want until the close
> of voting at 2018-07-26 23:59 UTC.
>
> For full information about this election, including the names and
> platforms of the candidates and other related information, please see:
> http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/votes/2018-board-election/
>
> Results will be announced on Friday, 27th July 2018.
>
> Martin Michlmayr
> President, Software in the Public Interest, Inc.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Spi-announce mailing list
> Spi-announce(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-announce

--
Hilmar Lapp -:- lappland.io

* Hilmar Lapp <hlapp(at)drycafe(dot)net> [2018-07-13 13:47]:
> The ballot explains how the votes will be counted (ScottishSTV) but
> not what does and what does not constitute a valid ballot
> submission. Presumably it is some combination of the letters
> standing for the candidates on the ballot, but that’s me guessing
> rather than knowing or being instructed.

Right, each candidate gets a letter and you enter the letters in your
preference, e.g. ABCD.

Jonathan, can you add some clarification to the site?

> Also, what is the effect of leaving off one or more of the
> candidates from the ballot altogether. Will these be interpreted as
> least preference or no preference.

Jonathan?

--
Martin Michlmayr
https://www.cyrius.com/

On 07/13/2018 11:19 AM, Martin Michlmayr wrote:
> * Hilmar Lapp <hlapp(at)drycafe(dot)net> [2018-07-13 13:47]:
>> The ballot explains how the votes will be counted (ScottishSTV) but
>> not what does and what does not constitute a valid ballot
>> submission. Presumably it is some combination of the letters
>> standing for the candidates on the ballot, but that’s me guessing
>> rather than knowing or being instructed.
> Right, each candidate gets a letter and you enter the letters in your
> preference, e.g. ABCD.

Does it still have the issue where if you only vote for one candidate
the vote doesn't count?

>
> Jonathan, can you add some clarification to the site?
>
>> Also, what is the effect of leaving off one or more of the
>> candidates from the ballot altogether. Will these be interpreted as
>> least preference or no preference.
> Jonathan?
>

--
Command Prompt, Inc. || http://the.postgres.company/ || @cmdpromptinc
*** A fault and talent of mine is to tell it exactly how it is. ***
PostgreSQL centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Advocate: @amplifypostgres || Learn: https://postgresconf.org
***** Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own. *****

Hilmar Lapp writes ("Re: Call for Votes - 2018 SPI board elections"):
> The ballot explains how the votes will be counted (ScottishSTV) but
> not what does and what does not constitute a valid ballot
> submission. Presumably it is some combination of the letters
> standing for the candidates on the ballot,

I can't speak for the ballot software, but I can answer this next
question:

> Also, what is the effect of leaving off one or more of
> the candidates from the ballot altogether. Will these be interpreted
> as least preference or no preference.

Least preference. While this is copletely standard for all other
preferential voting systems anywhere, it is a difference to SPI's past
practice in board votes. It would be worth highlighting that
somewhere appropriate.

FYI, the authoritative answer can be found, if you like digging, as
follows:

Start with the SPI board resolution on the voting system,
http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/resolutions/2017/2017-04-10.vy.1/
That refers to the Scottish Local Government Elections Order 2007
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ssi/2007/42/schedule/1/part/III/crossheading/counting-of-votes/made
(You have to infer the answer to the question from the counting
method.)

Alternatively, you could read the Wikipedia[1] description of STV
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote
which I think is probably sufficient to answer this question.

NB that I'm not providing these references with a subtext of "and you
should have known this". I just wanted to provide references to
authoritative information and to a reputable summary.

Ian.

[1] Caution: the Wikipedia pages on voting systems seem to me to have
been disproportionately influenced by proponents of Range Voting and
Approval Voting, which are systems which are IMO deeply flawed, very
rarely used in real elections and which for some reason seem to be
popular in certain USAian circles. A full discussion of this
phenomenon is out of scope here and might anyway lead to another
voting systems flamewar.

On Fri, Jul 13, 2018 at 08:19:53PM +0200, Martin Michlmayr wrote:
> * Hilmar Lapp <hlapp(at)drycafe(dot)net> [2018-07-13 13:47]:
> > The ballot explains how the votes will be counted (ScottishSTV) but
> > not what does and what does not constitute a valid ballot
> > submission. Presumably it is some combination of the letters
> > standing for the candidates on the ballot, but that’s me guessing
> > rather than knowing or being instructed.
>
> Right, each candidate gets a letter and you enter the letters in your
> preference, e.g. ABCD.
>
> Jonathan, can you add some clarification to the site?

Done. Can I take this opportunity to remind everyone that the code to
the site is in git in multiple places and something like this is the
sort of thing even someone unfamiliar with Python/Flask could have
easily contributed? The template in question is in templates/vote.html:

https://git.spi-inc.org/gitweb/?p=members.git;a=summary
https://gitlab.com/noodles/spi-members
https://github.com/u1f35c/spi-members

> > Also, what is the effect of leaving off one or more of the
> > candidates from the ballot altogether. Will these be interpreted as
> > least preference or no preference.
>
> Jonathan?

Ian has already covered this, but to repeat; the new system is a
variant of Single Transferable Vote, not Condorcet. STV has the more
usual property that if you don't specify a candidate in your ranking
then they'll never get your vote; they are least preference as Ian says.
If you only vote for one candidate then only that candidate will get
your vote.

J.

--
Life would be easier if I had | .''`. Debian GNU/Linux Developer
the source code. | : :' : Happy to accept PGP signed
| `. `' or encrypted mail - RSA
| `- key on the keyservers.

On Sat, Jul 14, 2018 at 11:17:25AM +0100, Jonathan McDowell wrote:
> https://git.spi-inc.org/gitweb/?p=members.git;a=summary

FWIW, I couldn't clone from any of the URLs mentioned here. The git://
protocol one fails with "fatal: Could not read from remote repository.";
the ssh:// with "R access for members DENIED to zack".

> https://gitlab.com/noodles/spi-members

I did manage to retrieve the code from here.

So please find attached a patch that might make it easier in the future
to find the source code and propose patches, rather than sending bug
reports to this list.

Note that:

1) the source code pointer I'm giving in the patch might be wrong, as it
points to git.spi-inc.org which, as mentioned above, didn't work for
me. (Arguably, the right fix is making it work, though, rather than
pointing to a different place for retrieving source code.)

2) it'd be nice to also mention where patches should be sent. I didn't
do so, because I don't know where you want to receive them. (I'm
guessing GitLab merge request on your own personal repo is not the
right place where to point people.)

Hope this helps,
Cheers
--
Stefano Zacchiroli . zack(at)upsilon(dot)cc . upsilon.cc/zack . . o . . . o . o
Computer Science Professor . CTO Software Heritage . . . . . o . . . o o
Former Debian Project Leader & OSI Board Director . . . o o o . . . o .
« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »

* Martin Michlmayr <tbm(at)cyrius(dot)com> [2018-07-13 20:19]:
> * Hilmar Lapp <hlapp(at)drycafe(dot)net> [2018-07-13 13:47]:
> > The ballot explains how the votes will be counted (ScottishSTV) but
> > not what does and what does not constitute a valid ballot
> > submission. Presumably it is some combination of the letters
> > standing for the candidates on the ballot, but that’s me guessing
> > rather than knowing or being instructed.
>
> Right, each candidate gets a letter and you enter the letters in your
> preference, e.g. ABCD.
>
> Jonathan, can you add some clarification to the site?

The page now says:

Your vote should be represented as an ordered list of candidate options e.g. to vote for A over B over C specify "ABC"

Thanks Jonathan!

https://git.spi-inc.org/gitweb/?p=members.git;a=blobdiff;f=templates/vote.html;h=e9d604a5cf17ac56ee9002d8ff8c001698941608;hp=39bf47550559053f67accdf40462267605811190;hb=ee043da18771d60b2a390111d4451939735fb626;hpb=5a592a435a58761db0df5875ea566fca00863c72

--
Martin Michlmayr
https://www.cyrius.com/

On Sat, Jul 14, 2018 at 03:12:59PM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 14, 2018 at 11:17:25AM +0100, Jonathan McDowell wrote:
> > https://git.spi-inc.org/gitweb/?p=members.git;a=summary
>
> FWIW, I couldn't clone from any of the URLs mentioned here. The git://
> protocol one fails with "fatal: Could not read from remote repository.";
> the ssh:// with "R access for members DENIED to zack".

Hmmmm. Out of my control; I have no access to the SPI infrastructure
other than as a user. Perhaps one of the admin team can fix up the
gitweb links?

> > https://gitlab.com/noodles/spi-members
>
> I did manage to retrieve the code from here.
>
> So please find attached a patch that might make it easier in the future
> to find the source code and propose patches, rather than sending bug
> reports to this list.
>
> Note that:
>
> 1) the source code pointer I'm giving in the patch might be wrong, as it
> points to git.spi-inc.org which, as mentioned above, didn't work for
> me. (Arguably, the right fix is making it work, though, rather than
> pointing to a different place for retrieving source code.)
>
> 2) it'd be nice to also mention where patches should be sent. I didn't
> do so, because I don't know where you want to receive them. (I'm
> guessing GitLab merge request on your own personal repo is not the
> right place where to point people.)

Thanks. I've applied your patch as it is and added the official +
unofficial links into the README. Email to webmaster@ is probably the
best place (or here on spi-general), but if it makes the difference
between someone contributing and not I'm happy to pay attention to PRs
on GitHub + Gitlab.

J.

--
Revd Jonathan McDowell, ULC | It's deja-vu all over again.