I do not regard this as a laughing matter.  In my opinion, this whole 
episode with NOTA has been about holding our leadership team 
accountable, to each other, to the membership, and to civil society as a 
whole.  We don't seem to have any mechanisms to do that, other than this 
NOTA vote.  Some questions to candidates remained unanswered here, and I 
think that is a shame.  If people do not think these values are 
important, please don't vote for me, because I do, and I do not really 
wish to work this hard for an organization that does not think 
councilors need to be accountable for their speech and actions.  If you 
voted for me, there is still time to change your vote and vote for 
NOTA.  If you persist in voting for me, I can assure you I will not be 
laughing this off.  I will be pushing for greater transparency, 
reporting, and accountability of councilors, in all the activities they 
undertake on our behalf.  If this is not the easy-come, easy-go approach 
you are looking for in your leaders, vote NOTA, NOTME.

For those in North America, have a great labour day weekend (everybody 
else should celebrate it too!!)

Stephanie Perrin


On 2016-09-02 5:19, matthew shears wrote:
> Hi Tapani
>
> While I realize your e-mail is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I think the 
> time would have been better spent elaborating on your own achievements 
> and most importantly giving us a sense of your vision for the future 
> rather than bad-mouthing poor Nota.
>
> Matthew
>
>
> On 02/09/2016 06:09, Tapani Tarvainen wrote:
>> Warning: I'm not writing this as the Chair but as a candidate
>> in the election. So this is campaigning, election propaganda:
>> I am trying to influence how you vote.
>>
>> Amd I'm going to use the time-honoured means of badmouthing
>> other candidates instead of praising myself.
>>
>> Specifically, I think one of the choices really sucks,
>> namely None of the Above, also known as NOTA.
>>
>> OK, to be fair, NOTA might make a good Chair, at least he has never
>> made any stupid mistakes, which is more than I can say for myself.
>> And in the Chair election rules are actually slightly weighed against
>> NOTA, as in case of a tie NOTA loses. I still think I'd be at least
>> a bit better Chair than NOTA.
>>
>> But in council NOTA would not only be bad, in the council
>> election he's got an unfair advantage in the rules, too.
>>
>> Suppose you like candidate X, don't care about others but
>> are thinking whether or not to vote for NOTA as well.
>>
>> In any situation where it matters, that is, where X is in any danger
>> of losing, voting X+NOTA rather than just X weakens X's chances of
>> getting elected.
>>
>> To see this, consider a situation where all votes but yours
>> have been counted and X is just one vote behind NOTA.
>> (This is the only situation where your vote matters.)
>>
>> If you've voted for just X, X will catch up with NOTA and wins.
>>
>> If you've voted for X+NOTA, X remains one vote behind NOTA and loses.
>>
>> So if you think your vote matters in getting X elected,
>> you should vote for just X, not for X+NOTA.
>>
>> You should vote for NOTA only if you are sure your favourite
>> candidate(s) will get elected anyway and you just want to weaken other
>> candidates' chances.
>>
>> Or, vote for NOTA if you think NOTA is *the* best choice and all others
>> would be better off losing.
>>
>> Do *not* vote NOTA as a symbolic expression of dissatisfaction or
>> anything like that. That's not what it's now for. If everybody votes
>> for their favourite candidate(s) plus NOTA, the election will fail
>> totally, nobody getting elected. That would not be good.
>>
>> And remember, you can still change your vote even if you've already
>> voted: just vote again, only the last one counts.
>>
>