Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!cmcl2!phri!roy From: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) Newsgroups: net.news.group Subject: Re: Let's 'vote' on net.general (default voting) Message-ID: <2246@phri.UUCP> Date: Sat, 22-Feb-86 10:37:27 EST Article-I.D.: phri.2246 Posted: Sat Feb 22 10:37:27 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 26-Feb-86 04:21:50 EST References: <2212@phri.UUCP> <2216@phri.UUCP> <377@nvzg2.UUCP> Reply-To: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) Organization: Public Health Research Inst. (NY, NY) Lines: 39 In article <377@nvzg2.UUCP> bjb@nvzg2.UUCP (Bernie Brown) writes: [regarding the default subject on a reply being a "yes" vote] > >Sounds like a beautiful way to stuff the ballot box. Hand the voter a marked >ballot. If s/he doesn't change it, that must me the way s/he wants it marked. You won't get any argument from me that there is a built-in bias to the way I have things set up. The bias is unintentional, however. I did not realize the problem until the first votes started coming in. Changing the rules in mid-stream seemed like the wrong way to fix things. Given that we were already working under a flawed set of rules, I posted a detailed followup explaining exactly what was going on. My hope was that between the original article and the followup, there won't be any confusion as to the proper way to cast votes. In addition, it has become apparent to me that keeping with my original intention of having the vote tallied totally by machine just wouldn't be fair. I will be scanning through the votes manually to correct "mistakes". As for stuffing the ballot box, a quick count shows maybe a dozen people who unintentionally cast "yes" votes when they wanted to say "no". A more disturbing problem (in my mind) is the intentional ballot box stuffing going on. One person sent me 10 copies of a "no" vote with the explanation that they should offset the accidental "yes" votes. Since he didn't include the "discussion" keyword, I can only assume he didn't intend for me to discover this. Another person was apparently under the impression that I was counting votes in the body (instead of the Subject line) and sent me a bunch of "no" votes which (if I was was totally relying on automated counting) would have been counted as a "yes". [Note: votes should *NOT* be sent directly to me; send them to gen-vote@phri.UUCP] -- Roy Smith, {allegra,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016