Really wish I was voting. And if I had the opportunity to vote, I definitely would not have voted for NOTA :) All the best to all the candidates running the elections. Best wishes and regards Shahzad --- Shahzad Ahmad Country Director, Bytes for All, Pakistan IM: [log in to unmask] | Google Talk: bytesforall Twitter: @bytesforall | @sirkup Office Direct Landline: +92 51 8437982 Cell. +92 333 5236060 PGP Fingerprint: 1004 8FDD 7E64 A127 B880 7A67 2D37 5ABF 4871 D92F > On Sep 2, 2016, at 10:09 AM, Tapani Tarvainen <[log in to unmask]> 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. > > -- > Tapani Tarvainen