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

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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