Re: Our counting procedure

["Marcelo E. Magallon" <mmagallo@debian.org>]

>> Steve Greenland <stevegr@debian.org> writes:

 > > IOW, if I only mark "--1--", then my vote is as good as nothing, since I
 > > made no preference of one over the other. So not specifying a rank in
 > > the order pretty much alleviates that choice in the tally for that
 > > particular vote.
 > 
 > Debatable. Unmarked votes can also be counted as "equally last", so
 > that "--1--" count is the same as "22122".

 Exactly.  Given options ABCD and none of the above (E), and given what
 the constitution says, voting --1-- ammounts IMO to "I like C over ABDE
 but I don't have a preference regarding the relation among the other
 options".  Along the same vein, "--1-2" means "I like C and 'nothing
 else'".  With our counting procedure this is *not* the same as "34152"
 because that means "[...] and prefer A over B", which I don't.  Please
 note this could make a difference in the end result *iff* you manage to
 get A.6.5 to kick in, which I'm not convinced you can (at least not in
 real votes) without interpreting what the constitution *says*.

 > The constitution is unclear on this (as well as many other things)

 It's not only unclear, it doesn't mention it at all.  As a matter of
 fact, the only place that mentions this is:

    In the brackets next to your preferred choice, place a 1. Place a 2
    in the brackets next to your next choice. Continue till you reach
    your last choice. You may leave choices you consider unacceptable
    blank. Start with 1, don't skip any numbers, don't repeat. To vote
    "no, no matter what" do not leave an option black but rank "None Of
    The Above" higher than the unacceptable choices.

 IMO the last two sentences are open for interpretation.  Note it
 *defines* 'unacceptable choices' and then explains how to 'discard'
 them.

 Anyway, we don't want to pull an USA here...

 Congrats Ben.  I wish the Project a good year under your leadership!

-- 
Marcelo