> On 6 Sep 2016, at 5:50 AM, Mueller, Milton L <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> 
>> Now is the time to resolve the election issues, while the topic is bright in our
>> minds.  Let's not put it on the back burner, but instead push through and find
>> the consensus.  We've already had several suggestions about how to fix the
>> process, let's continue exploring.
>> 
> 
> Agree, Dan. 
> Indeed, looking at the results, this ballot is even worse than I thought it would be because of its ambiguity. 
> Although the cumulative voting problem of NOTA was not realized, another problem has surfaced. 
> 
> Apparently, from the totals Tapani received, 349 total votes were cast. (299 for, 50 against). Now look at the totals for the Council candidates. None of them come anywhere close to 349. 
> 
> What this means is that many people did not vote for specific Council candidates. 
> The problem with this is that we don't know how to interpret those votes. Does it mean that they don't want these candidates elected, but forgot to tick NOTA? Or does it mean that they don't really support the candidate, but were swayed by Tapani's pressure against voting for NOTA? Or does it mean they were just confused when they were filling out the ballot? 

	I do not believe that not knowing how to interpret them is a problem. You will only ever be able to guess to some extent. There are legitimate reasons to not vote either for or against a candidate that have nothing to do with any of these. A vote may simply feel they do not know enough about a candidate to vote either for or against, but have strong opinions about others, for example. 
> 
> Just to give you a sense of how much this matter, look at what happens if we consider the absence of a vote FOR a Council candidate to be the same as a vote for NOTA:

	Why would we do that? They clearly are not the same thing. It would be obviously silly to make that assumption in an election with 4 or more candidates, why should we suddenly make that assumption now?

> 
> Tapani: 299 for, 50 against = total 349
> Rafik: 	272 for, 77 against = total 349
> Steph:	257 for, 92 against = total 349
> Ed:	214 for, 135 against = total 349
> 
> I suspect that what happened here is that people thought of NOTA as a dangerous and bad thing, but were in fact expressing their lack of support for some candidates by not ticking the box for them. However, we do not know for sure what was going on, and to my mind that is the kind of ballot we do not want to have. So in future, we must ensure that votes are distinct, unambiguous choices

	I suspect that level of unambiguity you want is unattainable. You can never unambiguously determine the motivations of others for voting as they do, nor ensure that they match reasoning you consider valid. 

	David