Re: [ga] withdrawal of candidacy

["Patrick Corliss" <patrick@quad.net.au>]

Hi Harald

Thank you for your interesting post about the withdrawal of Jon Weinberg from
the election for the Chair of the General Assembly.  I believe Jon has acted
properly and should be congratulated for his integrity.  It is, perhaps, a pity
that the current procedure doesn't allow candidates to nominate for the Chair
and co-Chair positions separately.  The outcome may well have been different.

Although I am a candidate I would like to make one or two other important
points, if I may.

(1)    I don't believe any of the three remaining candidates should drop out
MERELY because they see the result as a foregone conclusion.  As Jon's decision
showed, the race is not over until the decision is announced.

(2)    Similarly, all registered voters should not think that the result is
decided but should cast their vote for their preferred candidates in the order
of that preference as this is important to demonstrate legitimacy of the result.
The more votes there are the more legitimate is the result.

(3)    Harald has proposed two reasonable choices (see below), the first choice
could see the votes counted and the votes declared.  This is separate from the
announcement of the winner.  It is easy enough, for example, to say something
like:

"The votes cast in this election were as follows Candidate A (Jon Weinberg) - 90
votes, Candidate B - 80 votes, Candidate C - 60 votes, Candidate D - 40 votes.
As Candidate A has withdrawn I declare Candidate B the winner."

It is my view that all of the votes on the ballot paper must be counted exactly
in accordance with how they have been cast.  To do otherwise, in the slightest
degree, causes the perception, however slight or misinformed, that the election
may not be legitimate.

I agree it's a waste of time to count votes for a withdrawn candidate but it
must be done.

However, I would suggest that nobody draws any conclusions from the size of the
vote cast for a withdrawn candidate as it is impossible to determine the
intentions of those who voted prior to his withdrawal what they would have voted
if they had voted afterwards.

On another note I cast my own vote shortly after receiving the ballot paper.  It
now occurs to me that there was a small window before the ballot officially
opened.  If this is in fact the case, some votes may be deemed invalid as cast
outside the declared time frame.  My vote could be affected.

Because of the difficulties with time zones, I would appreciate it if you would
advise whether such an irregularity could occur and, if so, how should it be
dealt with.  I open this for public comment.

Best wishes to all candidates.
Patrick Corliss

----- Original Message -----
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@Alvestrand.no>
To: William X. Walsh <william@userfriendly.com>
Cc: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>; <ga@dnso.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 6:48 AM
Subject: Re[2]: [ga] withdrawal of candidacy


> At 11:56 03.04.2001 -0700, William X. Walsh wrote:
> > > Well, none of the candidates are dead, that I know of.  But we have no
> > > established practice here, and it seems pretty clear that the NC will
> > > have to make a determination.  Well, I suppose the GA could vote on
> > > what to do...
> >
> >I think the voting system adequately deals with this.  There really is
> >no crisis here.
>
> well, there are 2 reasonable choices:
>
> - Run the vote as scheduled, note that (if the resignee is a winner) either
> the chair or the co-chair has resigned, raise the co-chair to chair if the
> chair was the resignee, and call a new election for co-chair
>
> - Before the first round of counting, eliminate all resigned candidates
>
> I know positively that I did not think of this when writing the rules;
> there is nothing to cover resignation of a candidate after accepting.
> So by the default of "run the rules as written", the first option wins.
>
> Thoughts?
>
>
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