Re: Second Call for votes: General resolution: Sarge Release Schedule in view of GR 2004-003

[Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org>]

On Sun, Jul 04, 2004 at 02:47:34PM -0600, Marcelo E. Magallon wrote:

>  PS: In the national elections here, you can vote for someone, don't
>      vote, leave your vote blank or invalidate it.  There's a very
>      significant difference between not voting, leaving the vote blank
>      and invalidating it.  Not voting doesn't change the outcome, and it
>      means so much as "I don't care".  Voting blank changes the outcome
>      (blank votes are added to the option with the most votes) and
>      means, for me, "I can't decide myself, let others -- the majority
>      -- decide for me".

This is not the case in Debian's voting system.  If you don't express any
preferences in your ballot, it is equivalent to not having voted at all.
It doesn't even count towards quorum.

>  Invalidating doesn't change the outcome, but goes into the record (from
> my POV there's a difference between winning with 40% of the valid votes
> and 40% of the emitted votes)

Perhaps, but I have difficulty interpreting an invalid ballot (of which
we've had some in Debian) as anything other than voter incompetence.

-- 
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer