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

[Jeanette Hofmann]

I am also willing to contribute $10 for a second round.

jeanette

Bertrand de La Chapelle wrote:
> 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 <mailto: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
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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