A thread to discuss naming threads, board policy, new thread suggestions, and anything else that has to do with board administration and maintenance. Guaranteed to include lively debate and polls. Natter discouraged, but not deleted.
Current Stompy Feet: ita, Jon B, DXMachina, P.M. Marcontell, Liese S., amych
Couldn't hurt. I can't do clever, but something like, "Buffista ballots include the "no preference" option because some people may want to vote on one or more issues on a ballot, but not care about others. In addition, we have a quorum of 42 votes required for a ballot to count, so some people vote "no preference" just to ensure we don't fall short of that. "No preference" votes aren't counted as either yeses or nos, and the choice with the majority of the votes outside the "no preferences" still wins."
That sounds good, although (and I learned this in the hardest of ways) you really mean "most votes" rather than (the current definition of) "majority."
Also, did we ever figure out what would happen if "no preference" got a majority?
It's not an issue. Say we have 100 people vote on this ballot, and for question #1, 90 vote "no-preference", 6 vote "no", and 4 vote "yes". The "no" votes win. There were still 42 or more votes on the issue. Of those votes that expressed an opinion, more were saying "no" than were saying "yes".
That sounds good, although (and I learned this in the hardest of ways) you really mean "most votes" rather than (the current definition of) "majority."
If there's only two choices outside of the No Preferences, then "most votes" is the same thing as "majority".
t /pedant
Oh, hey, I was wondering what happened to CheeseButt. Cool.
If there's only two choices outside of the No Preferences, then "most votes" is the same thing as "majority".
Only if by 'majority' you mean "majority of non-'no preference' votes, rather than majority of votes cast.
Right, what billytea said. It's an issue, because we're addressing how the "no preference" works anyhow (in that is counted toward mvt).
Of course, if the English speaking world would follow my lead, and reclaim the "archaic" (but still frigging useful) definition of
majority,
we'd not have this problem.
t sniff
Only if by 'majority' you mean "majority of non-'no preference' votes, rather than majority of votes cast.
Cindy was referring to Lyra Jane's post which said
"No preference" votes aren't counted as either yeses or nos, and the choice with the majority of the votes outside the "no preferences" still wins."
I still think it's safer to say "most votes" there, rather than "majority".
Signed,
Once Bitten, and I didn't even get a lousy T-shirt
Okay, and one more question before we put something in Press; what happens if someone reads about Angel Previously and No Preference and says, "hey, I voted wrong!" Can they revote, or do they just have to suck it up?
So we are going with the rule that No preference votes only count towards the quorum issue, and that when deciding the actual issue, it is only the yes and no votes that matter, even if No preference has more votes than yes or no, right?
eta: Lyra, in fairness to them, they should be able to email me about it, since other people already have.
