Election stuff

Stratos

Banned deucer.
This thread will be moderated to keep discussion focused.

So...

We need a method to handle ties in future council votes. As frosty said, we can't just keep expanding the council whenever we have a tie.

A couple proposed ideas have been:

  1. Deck doesn't vote in any council member election, so he can break ties if necessary.
  2. All already-elected council members vote on who will join them. If there's a tie here too, Deck breaks.
  3. The current council members vote on who will win the tie.
However, this isn't even close to an exhaustive list, so keep ideas coming.

Furthermore, we should decide whether or not the 9-member shift is permanent or a one-time thing, though that's not as open-ended of a question.

also we should probably decide to hold elections like two weeks early so the sitting council can resolve this kind of shit in a 'lame-duck' session
 

Frosty

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I believe the council should focus on running itself in a more independent matter. Deck has the ultimate veto/vote power, but we should refrain from depending on him to get things moving IMO.

A solution I would propose would be a 24h voting from the community just between the candidates of the tie. If the community is supposed to choose to council, it should choose the entire council.

If that comes to a second tie, we call the previous council to decide, since it should have an odd number of members. If that doesn't work add in the elected votes and if all that doesn't work then call Deck.
 

Texas Cloverleaf

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In that vein we should draft up an amendment to the constitution (the Deck just approved) indicating that at the end of their term the current council will determine and vote upon if there is a need for the size of the council to change and if so what size the new council should be.
 

ZhengTann

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If it's really important to have an odd number of Councillors (personally I think ties would happen rarely in any circustances - there's no way the Council would be so evenly split on most matters, just as there should be no way that the Council has a common view over most matters that deserve discussion in Policy), then I'm supporting Frosty and Tex.

Council represents the community, therefore the community decides, not just the newly elected/disbanded Councillors. Drafting up an amendment to the constitution, as per Texas' post, is fine by me, as long as the Council seeks feedback from the community in that matter - even though Councillors may hold the voting power over Policy issues, at heart it should reflect the community consensus, not Council consensus.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
I agree with letting the players vote resolve the ties concerning the members of the council
I believe the council should focus on running itself in a more independent matter. Deck has the ultimate veto/vote power, but we should refrain from depending on him to get things moving IMO.

A solution I would propose would be a 24h voting from the community just between the candidates of the tie. If the community is supposed to choose to council, it should choose the entire council.
seconding both of these users in that ties should be resolved by the community; we didn't do it last time because we were in a time crunch and indecisive but i really think we should in the future.

To make sure we have time to appropriately deal with such a crisis, i think we should set out a timetable for council elections and such:

2 weeks before the expiration of a term (which happens on may or november 9), a self-nominations thread will be posted.
96 hours later, voting will begin.
72 hours later, results will be announced.
Any tiebreaker elections will be held in 24 hours immediately following posting of results

and that'll give the current council a week to hurry and solve any problems that come around next election

edit: oh and i think we should definitely not do the thing where we let councillors decide the size of the next council after council is picked that's just begging for power abuse (also we should go back to 7 after this term)
 

ZhengTann

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To make sure we have time to appropriately deal with such a crisis, I think we should set out a timetable for council elections and such:

2 weeks before the expiration of a term (which happens on may or november 9), a self-nominations thread will be posted.
96 hours later, voting will begin.
72 hours later, results will be announced.

Any tiebreaker elections will be held in 24 hours immediately following posting of results, and that'll give the current council a week to hurry and solve any problems that come around next election.

Edit: Oh, and I think we should definitely not do the thing where we let councillors decide the size of the next council after council is picked that's just begging for power abuse (also we should go back to 7 after this term).
Seconding the timeframe, although 2 weeks in total might be a tad long. Personally I think 1 week of 3-day nominations, 2-day poll, 2-day tiebreak/announcement is pretty solid, since our community ain't that big. But eh, it's the same either way. Also seconding Pwne's edit about the Council's size, since we already have the timeframe to break possible ties. Should the time come when 7 Councillors aren't enough, we can either ask Deck to appeal the thumbs up then, or rely on general community consensus. No need to burden the Council with more power abuse possibili- I mean, responsibilities, no? :)
 

Birkal

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As a quick note, the problem of a victor in a tie is still unresolved with the currently developing proposal. If the community votes to resolve a tiebreaker, there could still easily be a tie. This is entirely possible due to the voting sample size of CAP ASB. Therefore, I'd recommend that the proposal indicate that Deck Knight cannot vote in a tiebreaker. That way, his vote can serve as the ultimate tiebreaker if it comes down to it.

It's interesting though. You will eventually need one single person to serve as the tiebreaker at some point, so I don't fully understand the need to have the community vote in a tiebreaker in the first place. The community did vote in the tiebreaker; it's their initial vote. In my mind, that seems like another hoop to jump through, which is inefficient and prone to campaigning by those involved in the elections. I'm not strongly against doing it that way, but I hope the negatives of an extra hoop are considered in this conversation.
 

ZhengTann

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... I'd recommend that the proposal indicate that Deck Knight cannot vote in a tiebreaker. That way, his vote can serve as the ultimate tiebreaker if it comes down to it.

It's interesting though. You will eventually need one single person to serve as the tiebreaker at some point, so I don't fully understand the need to have the community vote in a tiebreaker in the first place. The community did vote in the tiebreaker; it's their initial vote. In my mind, that seems like another hoop to jump through, which is inefficient and prone to campaigning by those involved in the elections. I'm not strongly against doing it that way, but I hope the negatives of an extra hoop are considered in this conversation.
Well, why don't we take the recently concluded ballots as a case study? (Correct me if there's anything wrong with my nomenclature) 25 people voted for their respective choices in Council. The most popular candidates (dogfish and IAR) recieved 23 out of 25 votes in their favour. Tied at 7th, Pwne and zar only recieved 12 votes apiece out of the 25. The reason this happened is that our current Council voting method is basically 7 Single Bold Votes, with 7 Councillors being chosen by virtue of having the highest vote count amongst the nominees. Since we're not implementing IRV, we cannot say for certain that the tie will remain a tie if the slate is reduced from a dozen potential nominees to a 2- or even 3-way tiebreaking slate. For example, I might have not voted for either Pwne or zar in the initial voting, but in the tiebreaker, I'd have to choose one over the other.

That's why I'm in favour of the community-based tiebreaker. Yes, it will take up a couple more days, which delays the progress of Policy Center even more, but I feel it is a necessary evil. The Council should not have power over whom they admit into their folds without evidence of community support (Texas replaced CMFP during the first term because Tex ended up at 8th place in voting IIRC). As for Deck, I don't think I can speak for him (sorry Deck), but if I were in his shoes, I'd rather that such things be handled by the collective consensus rather than the Word of God. Still, you're right Birks - if we still came down to a second tie, then Deck should step in as per his right and responsibility.
 

Frosty

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I can't honestly see the problem in giving extra 24h-48h for people to vote. You don't have to vote so only people paying attention will vote. And one can argue and only those votes matter (won't go there though).

The only "problem" is that the poor guy collecting the votes will work a tad more, but besides that I see no problem. A 24-48h won't kill anyone. Also, depending on the council and the matter it usually take that long for a voting to be finished >_>.
 

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