Dear all,

While the voting rules confirmed by NCSG EC yesterday may be familiar
and clear to oldtimers and mathematically-minded people like myself,
they may not be obvious to all. I try to clarify them a little.

In particular the actual effect of None-of-the-Above vote to
candidates' chances of getting elected (that is, beating NotA) in the
councillor election is not quite intuitive. Chair election is clear
enough so I won't discuss it now, and I'm ignoring any symbolic
meanings as well.

Key point: in the present situation, the only thing that matters in
deciding if a candidate gets elected is whether or not their vote
count is less than NotA's.

With that in mind:

In the councillor section of the ballot there are four boxes
one can tick: one for each candidate, let's call them X, Y and Z,
and one for None of the Above.

This gives in effect eight different ways of filling the ballot:

(1) Leave it empty - tick no boxes.

This has no effect on the outcome, but will be counted as a valid
vote.

(2) Select only NotA, none of the candidates.

This will decrease all candidates' chances of getting elected equally.

(3) Select one candidate, say X (but not NotA).

This will improve candidate X's chances of getting elected
and has no impact on the chances of candidates Y and Z.

(4) Select two candidates, say Y and Z (but not NotA).

This will improve both Y's and Z's chances of getting elected
and has no impact on the chances of X.

(5) Select one candidate, X, and NotA.

This will have no effect at all on X's chances but will
reduce Y's and Z's chances of being elected.

In effect the NotA vote will cancel the positive vote to X,
leaving only negative vote against Y and Z.

(6) Select two candidates, Y and Z, and NotA.

This will have no effect on Y's and Z's chances but
will reduce X's chances.

Again, the effect of NotA is canceling out the positive vote
to Y and Z, leaving only the negative effect on X.

(7) Select all three candidates (but not NotA).

This will improve all candidates' chances of getting elected.

(8) Select all three candidates and NotA.

This will invalidate the ballot and it will have no effect on the
outcome. Invalid ballots will be separately counted, however.


The most counterintuitive cases are (5) and (6): if voting
for one or two candidates, adding NotA will actually
reduce the chances of your chosen candidate(s) being elected
(just as much as those of the other candidates').

If everybody votes that way, that is, selects one or two candidates
plus NotA, no candidate can ever be elected.

A simplified hypothetical example to illustrate this:

Assume we have 400 voters with one vote each.

The assume 100 people vote for X+NotA and 300 vote for Y+Z+NotA.

Result: X gets 100 votes, Y and Z 300 each, NotA gets 400,
and nobody gets elected.


I find this system so bizarre that it actually never occurred to
me that it really was the intent in previous elections.
Indeed I failed to believe it even when people kept yelling at me that
yes, that was the intent. Well, I was wrong. Not for the first time.

Good reminder that what someone thinks is obvious may not be so at all
to another. And in things like elections that can be dangerous, so all
such assumptions should be made explicit and written down.


Anyway, this is the system we have, longstanding practice,
and we are not going to change it for this election.


So, vote - but take care that you understand the real effect of your
vote, especially when thinking about voting for None of the Above.


******

For the future, however, I recommend reconsidering this and looking
for better methods, even changing the charter if need be. Perhaps some
type of approval voting, separate NotA for each candidate, or a vote
threshold would work. All such systems have their own pitfalls though,
it takes care to do them well. I will not go deeper into that now, but
I suggest it would be best to define the rules at a time sufficiently
far from any actual elections that thoughts of current candidates and
strategies will not cloud people's thinking. Of course election-time
discussions such as the present brouhaha should be very useful
material to review then, so by all means let the debate continue if
people aren't tired of it yet. It may prove worthwhile in the end.

-- 
Tapani Tarvainen