[Mmwg] Electing the second co-chair : a Suggestion

Wed Feb 8 16:12:39 GMT 2006

Congrats to Jacqueline. And thanks a lot to Avri for getting us going.

On what to do next for the selection of a second co-chair, I am OK for
endorsing Wolfgang if there is a consensus but would prefer a second round
to be set up.

I only identify a potential problem in the latter case. If we are allowed to
cast only one vote, there is no guarantee that anyone will get 2/3 of the
votes. Votes could be distributed evenly among the three remaining
candidates for instance (each one third). Of course we could count on a
momentum in favor of the leading candidate (in this case Wolfgang) and be
out of trouble, but this is not guaranteed by the mechanism. And we should
try to identify mechanisms that automatically produces a predictable result.

I therefore propose the following modality that will guarantee that we have
at least one candidate reaching 2/3 of the votes. We just need to maintain
the possibility to choose 2 names in the remaining list of 3. As there are
only three possibilites to vote (A and B, A and C and B and C if the three
candidates are A, B and C), the whole group will necessarily split into
three clusters (those voting for A and B, those for A and C, and those for B
and C) and two clusters will necessarily represent more than 2/3 of the
total together. Hence, if the two groups forming this 2/3 majority together
have voted for instance respectively for A-B and B-C, candidate B - and
he/she alone - will mathematically enjoy a 2/3 majority.

The only case where this mechanism would not produce a solution is if :
- the number of people casting a vote is a multiple of 3 (any non multiple
is OK)
- AND the group has split evenly among the candidates (ie : combinations
A-B, A-C and B-C have all gathered 1/3 of the members)

In all other cases, the system produces a clear result. And even in the
above case, a rule could be established to attribute the seat to the
candidate that gathered the most votes in the previous round.

So, in order to make myself clear, I suggest :
- that we keep the three candidates
- that we allow a second round with the possibility to cast two votes
- that in case the number of people voting is a multiple of 3 and the votes
are evenly distributed, Wolfgang (who got the most votes in the first round)
is given the seat.

Apart from producing a clear result in all cases I believe this mechanism
would be interesting to explore further and I would be very happy if it
could be tested here.

We will be confronted in the near future with many occurences for selecting
people as chairs, grooup coordinators or members of various committees. I
believe this opens a way to innovate and find modalities that will designate
people that can be endorsed by the broadest majority, avoiding the too
frequent outcome of traditional majority voting that produces victories with
50,01 % of the votes and a split among constituents ("my candidate won,
yours lost" ...).

I hope this helps.

Do not hesitate to correct me if my calculations are wrong.

Best

Bertrand

On 2/8/06, Avri Doria <avri at acm.org> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Ok, I believe that at this point, the election of the co-chairs have
> ended.
>
> 22 out of 35 people voted.
>
> The results:
>
>
> David Allen  (8 votes) - 36% of those voting
> Robert Guerra  18.18% - (8 votes) - 36% of those voting
> Wolfgang Kleinwachter (12 votes)  55% of those voting
> Jacqueline Morris  (16 votes) 73% of those voting
>
> By the requirements in the charter it takes 2/3 (67%) vote to be
> elected.
>
> So Jacqueline is definitely elected as one of the two co-chairs.
> Congratulations and thanks.
>
> At this point, while Wolfgang has a majority vote, he does not have 67%.
>
> Aand I am not sure what to do.  Do we need to have a runoff election,
> or is there a chance we can reach consensus.  Please let the list
> know.  In the meantime, Jacqueline is a chair of the group.  And if
> she (and the groups) wants I will assist her while we are trying to
> resolve the co-chair issue.
>
> -------
>
> Obviously, this first experiment at voting leaves some learning to be
> done.  In addition to not having reached a full 2/3 on the vote for
> one of the candidates, I received some other comments.
>
> - Instead of forcing everyone to vote for 2 people perhaps it should
> have been set up for up to 2 votes.
>
> - should be using open source facilities instead of a .com commercial
> facility.  Note I could not find any open source based facility but
> would surely prefer to have used such a system.
>
> - people's passwords should have been auto-generated instead of my
> sending them out to people.  I do assure you all that I did not abuse
> my having access to all the passwords.  Also, for their to be auto-
> generation of passwords, it would have been necessary to give out
> people's email addresses, which opens up a spam risk.  This should be
> discussed further.
>
> - I should have included candidate biographic information for those
> who don't know everyone.
>
> - Nomination process should have been clearer and more formalized
>
> These comments are all valid and merit discussion, especially in
> terms of any recommendations the Wg might make that include voting
> mechanisms for any of the follow-on mechanisms.
>
> thanks to all those who voted and commented.
>
> a.
>
> ex MMWG coordinator
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mmwg mailing list
> mmwg at wsis-cs.org
> http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/mmwg
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/pipermail/mmwg/attachments/20060208/0fb213c0/attachment.html