[Bill Cummings]

Do I see a problem with this method of tabulating votes or is it more likely I’m missing something?
I see where DEFINITELY the votes can not be an open running vote. It must be secret until after the voting deadline. Why?
1) Since Bob voted first and is the website moderator. Would that influence anyone?

2) Also I picked A=C and Sam, just to spite me, picked C=A other wise what other reason would Sam list C before A when both are equal? So now I want to go back and edit A as my first vote just to put Sam in his place. (Bob you trouble maker.)

3) And really Bob where do you come off saying “= since Bill doesn’t care,” and “= since Sam doesn’t care,” when it’s obvious Sam does like C over A (since he listed C first, although being equal).
(Just playing the devil’s advocate here and not really ticked off at anyone. Actually laughing while I type.)

4) Seriously now the most important thing will be how the voting options are phrased. Example:
A) Should Bob stop beating his wife?
B) Should Bob’s wife stop beating Bob?
C) Should both be reported?
D) Would you like the violence to stop?
So did Sam’s listing C first even though equal to A carry any more weight in the order of things?

[Bob Kuczewski]

Do I see a problem with this method of tabulating votes or is it more likely I’m missing something?
I see where DEFINITELY the votes can not be an open running vote. It must be secret until after the voting deadline. Why?
1) Since Bob voted first and is the website moderator. Would that influence anyone?

It would probably influence them to vote against me!!! (also laughing while I'm typing )

The effect you mention is certainly possible. At USHPA Board meetings, most votes are taken by show of hands. You can watch the Directors looking around the room to see whose hands go up first and then deciding how to vote depending on whose "team" they're on!!

I'm hoping our Directors will have more backbone than that, but I'm also not dead-set against hiding votes until the voting time is closed.

As another comment, my current plan is to leave voting open for some period of time, and people are certainly welcome to change their minds (and their votes) as the discussion and voting progresses. The rule will be that only the last vote counts.

With regard to me being the website moderator and influencing anyone, we really need to get past the idea that this is "Bob's site". I am very serious about making this into a member-controlled organization. My only concern with just turning it over right now is that we can't have a repeat of the HGAA. That's why I'm remaining "in control" during this "growing" phase.

2) Also I picked A=C and Sam, just to spite me, picked C=A other wise what other reason would Sam list C before A when both are equal? So now I want to go back and edit A as my first vote just to put Sam in his place. (Bob you trouble maker.)

Just vote again. That's one of the advantages of open posting of votes. It's not just a vote. It's an evolving discussion. One purpose of voting is to come up with an "answer", but another purpose is to allow the give and take of ideas that will bring us to even better answers.

3) And really Bob where do you come off saying “= since Bill doesn’t care,” and “= since Sam doesn’t care,” when it’s obvious Sam does like C over A (since he listed C first, although being equal).
(Just playing the devil’s advocate here and not really ticked off at anyone. Actually laughing while I type.)

It's funny that you mention my choice of words. I did hesitate for a bit, and thought about trying to be more diplomatic, but then that's why my posts end up being so long!!

4) Seriously now the most important thing will be how the voting options are phrased. Example:
A) Should Bob stop beating his wife?
B) Should Bob’s wife stop beating Bob?
C) Should both be reported?
D) Would you like the violence to stop?

You're absolutely right (at least about the phrasing being important, not about me beating my wife!!). I anticipate that for important decisions, we will have discussions about the phrasing before posting the vote topic so everyone has a chance to make their suggestions. Eventually, we will have to have a Chairman or other decision maker who can say, "OK, I've heard all arguments, and we're going to do it this way". And if we have enough confidence in that person, then it should be OK. The same thing happens in actual person-to-person club meetings. The Chairman often makes decisions about what can be heard now and what will be deferred until later.

So did Sam’s listing C first even though equal to A carry any more weight in the order of things?

Nope. Not one bit of difference. Equal means equal.

Bill, these are lots of very good points, and I appreciate the chance to answer them!! Please feel free to let me know how I did.

When we started the HGAA, we all thought it was going to be great ... but it wasn't. Maybe it was the people, maybe it was the time pressure, or maybe it was something else. But whatever it was, I want to be very careful that it doesn't happen again here. That's why I'm going a lot slower this time around so we can hopefully have the time to see what's going wrong before it gets too far out of control. I appreciate all efforts to make this work. So thanks Bill!!!

[Bill Cummings]

Yes Bob all my questions were answered.

Hawks,
Setting up a well thought out voting procedure online for the Hawks members has the potential of exceeding the voting system used to convey our interests to our elected government officials.

I don’t have the money to act as a special interest or lobbyist to even get a minute of time with the government people in elective office that make decisions that affect me. We only have one vote.
People with money shoved through things like franchise laws where a business that doesn’t even have service to some areas within their so called franchise area can get a cut of the money from you if you provide the needed service.
To me that makes an unleveled playing field bought with money. It works against competition and allows for monopolies . The system is corrupt.
All I have is one vote, diluted by cronies of money people in power that redraw voting precincts, diluted further by a two party system where half on my interests are pushed and the other half opposed. I have one vote and many interests!

It would be so much better if we all had the system set up where we could vote from the privacy of our homes whether by phone or computer on the interests we have since we all have more than one interest but we only get one vote on the government level.

I can dial a number that will automatically extend my tax due date.
I can vote for dancing with the stars from home.
I can vote for American Idol from home.
I can renew my cars registration from home.
I can do my taxes online at home.
BUT---Oh look they voted the right way on the 2nd amendment but against my wishes concerning abortion.

The Hawks don’t need to send people off in a jet to a brick and mortar building to carry our wishes.
It used to take a guy three month in a horse and buggy to go to Washington to represent the ranchers in the Boot Heel of New Mexico.
Of course the sodbusters couldn’t afford to send their guy to Washington.

Now we could just hit “Send,” and vote on each individual thing up for a vote.
It will never happen with this government, BUT-------
WE COULD DO IT WITHIN THE US HAWKS HANG GLIDING ASSOCIATION.
Carry on Bob.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Great post Bill!!!

diluted further by a two party system

Part of the reason for a two party system is to ensure that the elected officials get at least (or at least nearly) half the votes. In countries with many parties, the elected official is sometimes chosen by a small fraction of the voters and that does create some dissatisfaction. The proposed US Hawks voting system is designed to fight both of those problems. You can cast a ballot that orders your choices like this  Perot Bush Clinton  without fearing that your vote for Perot would cause Clinton to defeat Bush (no political statement intended ... just a recent and appropriate example). With the proposed system, the decision about whether Clinton beats Bush is based ONLY on the ordering of Clinton and Bush on each voter's ballot. Whether people put Perot first, or last, or in between does NOT affect the ordering of Clinton and Bush on each voter's ballot. This really is much more important than most people understand.

By the way, I want to add one more comment to my earlier post regarding private voting. I do believe that people voting to represent only themselves and their own interests should be able to vote in private. We don't really have a good way to do that yet on our forum, but I hope we will when it's time for members to vote.

But what we're talking about here is really the voting of Directors. And Directors are NOT voting for themselves nor are they voting for their own interests. They are voting as the representatives of the people who elected them or will re-elect them, and that's why their votes should ALWAYS be public. If the people who elect representatives don't know how their representatives vote, then they have no way to decide whether to re-elect them or not. This is one of my biggest problems with USHPA and it's one of the many reasons that the US Hawks will do better.

Thanks Bill. Let's do it right this time around!!

[Bob Kuczewski]

"D" as a tease into the future when "floats when wanted" will be triggered to show when pilot wants them, else they will be non-drag collapsed items during soaring. Floats-when-wanted FWW will open landings into ponds, lakes, seas, rivers, creeks, bogs, swimming pools, watering troughs, etc. And flat-water days at Torrey ...

This is a neat idea Joe. Do you know if water landings were ever commonplace anywhere? I know they used to tow up on floats, but for some reason I thought most landings were on the beach. Maybe Bill can chime in as well.


P.S. Thanks for your answer in the "Water 'landing'" topic under "Hang Gliding General". Thanks also for keeping us on topic!!  

[Bob Kuczewski]

This animated GIF plays about one frame every 2.5 seconds. That's a little fast for some slides, and a little slow for others. But it repeats, so hang in there if you don't get it all the first time through.   

vote_example_003.gif (644.3 KiB) Viewed 7249 times

[Bob Kuczewski]

So why is this important? What's the big deal?

The big deal is all about making better decisions. The reason that most of us are considering being part of a new hang gliding organization is that we've been (at least somewhat) unhappy with the decisions made by USHPA.

In some sense, an organization is nothing more than the decisions it makes. If we want the US Hawks to be better than USHPA, then we have to figure out a way to make better decisions. I believe this method of voting will help us do that. And better decisions are the best thing (and right now, one of the only things) we can give to our members.

[Bill Cummings]

Bobk quote----
"----But what we're talking about here is really the voting of Directors.
And Directors are NOT voting for themselves nor are they voting for their own interests.
They are voting as the representatives of the people who elected them or will re-elect them,
and that's why their votes should ALWAYS be public. If the people who elect representatives
don't know how their representatives vote, then they have no way to decide whether to re-elect them or not.
This is one of my biggest problems with USHPA and it's one of the many reasons that the US Hawks will do better.---"
___________
Bob,
Do you think that Hawks would find it acceptable if their director would frame an issue into a vote for their region, like your sample vote on which glider image was most liked, and make that the verifiable vote that the director would take to the board of directors meeting.
Can we go one step farther:
Keeping in mind that a directors vote should be posted but that still doesn’t guarantee to each individual member that for instance a 45%/55% vote within a region on one particular issue wasn’t fudged by a biased director that was siding with the 45% voters.
What I’m getting at is in this age of the internet is it always necessary that the individual members vote be trusted to anyone when it is technically possible for the member to have his/her vote counted directly to the final ballot when their finger hit’s the “send” key?

If members wanted to vote secretly then return to their email a verification code number that they could look up when the voting results are posted to know that their vote was counted where they wanted it.

I can see where sitting up a vote A B C D or E could get complicated while trying to please everyone (not going to happen) but things that that have the luxury of time to hash out before a vote should be.

The old vote method in the State of Minnesota had lousy vote wording when they asked this on a ballot.
Should the state give a $500.00 bonus to Vietnam era veterans? Yes or No
The word “era” gave the bonus to all the veterans even the ones not in a war zone.
This vote would have handled the desires of the public better if the vote had been set up like the sample vote that Bob created. One that didn’t force a voter to vote on a poorly worded question. I wonder how many legislators had sons or daughters in the military and how many of them were assigned in areas not a war zone.

We have the chance to put in place with the US Hawks Hang Gliding Association a voting system that would seriously affect any special interest guiding the will of the members away from the members for the benefit of $pecial intre$t$.
Should there be a bylaw stating that any director presiding over an issue that would affect them monetarily, or business wise, or have the appearance of impropriety, must abstain from voting.

[Bob Kuczewski]

  Bill!!! You bring up a lot of excellent points!!!  

I can see where sitting up a vote A B C D or E could get complicated while trying to please everyone (not going to happen) but things that that have the luxury of time to hash out before a vote should be.

One of the things I was thinking about over the weekend (and I think I even called Joe to talk about it) was the idea of how to get things on the ballot and what if the right choices are left off. Here's my proposal.

In addition to voting for A, B, C, ..., voters can also choose X (or something similar) which means "none of the above". So if X should win, then that means that the vote needs to be tried again with additional choices added. This works great with the Condorcet method because additional choices do not affect the order of the existing preferences. If I like green better than blue, then I will pick green over blue whether I'm offered a choice of red or not. The same goes for the "None of the above" (X) candidate. So if I didn't like any of the candidates, I might vote:

  X A B=C D

This means that I prefer another option (X) over A, B, C, or D. So if enough voters put X ahead of the other choices and X wins, then we'll have to ask for new suggested options to be added to the ballot. Note that a person might vote like this:

  A B X C D

This means that they would prefer A first, B second, and some other choice over C or D. So if A wins, then they are very happy (it was their first choice above all others). The same is mostly true for B. But this voter is saying that if neither A or B wins, then they want to have other options added to the list.

And that gets to another important point about the Condorcet voting system. If I prefer Green over Blue, and they are the only choices, then my vote will be:

  Green    Blue

But if there are other choices, they don't change my preference for Green and Blue. I might end up voting:

  Orange    Red    Green    Black    Yellow    Blue    Pink

But the fact that I would prefer Green over Blue is completely preserved in this vote. I may be "wasting" my vote on Orange if I know (or suspect) that no one else likes Orange, but that does not take away from my vote for Green over Blue when they are compared against each other. So this system is very tolerant of additional candidates, which means we could have a policy that we will include all suggestions on the ballots. And if there are still not enough choices (in other words, X wins), then we will add even more choices. I think it will work great!!

I've also been thinking about a problem that was brought up in the HGAA discussions. It turns out that the Condorcet voting system that I've described can sometimes not find an answer. In other words, there may NOT be a single candidate who can defeat all others (like Rock, Paper, Scissors). I think in this case, we treat it like a tie which means we either negotiate, or add more options, or simply don't do whatever is being proposed. A tie can happen in any voting system and it's reasonable to interpret that as there simply not being sufficient knowledge or desire to make a change.

But the BIG question you've asked Bill is about Representative Government itself. Is it possible for ALL decisions to be made directly by the members themselves? Why do we need representatives anyway?

To be honest, I could go either way on that question. I think if the voters themselves are up to speed on an issue, then that might be the way to go. The reason I would hesitate is the practical problem of people just not bothering to participate enough to know the right decision. Some issues take a good deal of time to study and understand and may even require special areas of expertise or study. When voters elect someone, they are sometimes saying that they trust that person's judgement and expertise even more than their own. So maybe a compromise might be a kind of proxy system where everyone can vote on every issue, but they can also assign their votes "by proxy" to someone they trust. That's particularly interesting, because you might imagine that I (not knowing much about towing or history) could give my "towing proxy" to Bill, and my "history proxy" to Joe, while retaining the right to vote on other matters myself.

The good news is that these are all in the realm of possibilities. It's up to us to decide how we think this thing should work.

Thanks for such great ideas!!    

[Bill Cummings]

bobk quote:
"---So maybe a compromise might be a kind of proxy system where everyone can vote on every issue, but they can also assign their votes "by proxy" to someone they trust. That's particularly interesting, because you might imagine that I (not knowing much about towing or history) could give my "towing proxy" to Bill, and my "history proxy" to Joe, while retaining the right to vote on other matters myself.----"
_______
I like the option idea of occasionally assigning my vote to a proxy while still able to vote myself if I so desire.
Directors would still be needed for decisions that must be made NOW with no time for a vote. In other words for those occasions they already have my proxy vote.