[maemo-community] Maemo Community Council election results

[From: Dave Neary]

Hi,

Uwe Kaminski wrote:
> Excuse me, but is it possible to bring the list in a human readable
> format containing _only_ the information needed to understand why a
> candidate is elected? If all the values are necessary to understand who
> is the new council and why it seems to be too complex. :)
> 
> What I understand is:
> * Who is in the council (but only because there is a note below the table)
> * How many community members voted:
> 
> But I don't get the point how the votings are calculated.

So let me explain what happened for JaviSPedro (for example):


JaviSPedro got 32 votes in count 1. That means 32 people chose
JaviSPedro as their #1 choice.

In Count 2, Texrat was elected, and his surplus was distributed. That
means, he got more votes than he needed to to be assured election.

To be assured election, he needed (397/6) + 1 = 67 votes out of 397
valid ballots (since if 5 people get 67 votes, the 6th will have a
maximum of (397 - (5*67)) = 62 votes, but it's possible for 6 people to
have 66 votes each). since he got 97 votes, that means he has a surplus
of 30 votes to be distributed.

We look at who got the #2 preference among votes where Texrat was #1. In
cases where the #2 was Jaffa or GeneralAntilles, we look who got the #3
preference, since they are both over the quota. We keep going until the
vote is exhausted (non-transferable) or until we for a preference for a
candidate still in the race.

Among the 97 Texrat votes, there were 9 votes transferable to hopbeat, 5
to zehjotkah, 23 to achipa, 13 to YoDude, 6 to JaviSPedro, 5 to andy80,
22 to andrewfblack, and 14 non-transferable.

Texrat needs to keep 67 votes to be elected, but the other 30 votes are
distributed, proportional to how many 2nd preferences there were. And
each vote is given a weight of 30/97 (30 votes transferred of 97 in
total). So JaviSPedro gets an additional 6*30/97 = 1.855668 votes.

We repeat this process with Jaffa & GA's surplusses, at the end of
which, JaviSPedro has 36.770336 votes.

At this point, YoDude is eliminated.

Now, we look at each #1 vote for YoDude where the next preference is
JaviSPedro, and each of those transfers to JaviSPedro. Then we look at
the next preference for the votes that transferred (with a weight of
30/97) from Texrat's surplus, and we go to the next preference. Each of
those transfers with the same weight of 30/97. Then the YoDude votes
that transferred from Jaffa, with a weight of 17/84, and then the
transfers from GA, with a weight of 5/72. At the end of this, we find
that the 17.43 votes that YoDude had at the point where he was elected
transferred 1 to hopbeat, 2.38 to zehjotkah, 1.76 to achipa, 7.68 to
JaviSPedro, 1.93 to andy80, 0.93 to andrewfblack, and 2.76 exhausted (to
nobody).

And then we repeat this process for zehjotkah, andrewfblack and hopbeat,
before we arive at a situation where 4 candidates are elected, and 4 are
eliminated, and there's 1 place left for 2 candidates. At this point,
JaviSPedro has 55.768 votes accumulated, and andy80 has 38.453 votes
accumulated, so JaviSPedro is elected, even though he didn't reach the
magic total of 67 votes.

Does this explanation make it clearer for you?

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
maemo.org docsmaster
Email: dneary at maemo.org
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