ECF Elections 2015

[John Philpott]

Martin Carpenter wrote

The Non Exec tally is one below twice everything else but I presume the vote for None of the above is effectively a double vote

Correct. It took me some time to work this out.

[MartinCarpenter]

Well it was awfully nihilistic to reject all those people at once!

Very vaguely seriously - what does a vote for NOA mean in a multi person/multi vote/multi winner election? Not at all obvious, especially if it somehow contrived to win with say 1/5th of the vote

[Roger de Coverly]

Very vaguely seriously - what does a vote for NOA mean in a multi person/multi vote/multi winner election?

If you have at least two candidates, you can vote for two candidates, one candidate or no candidates. If you anticipate a close race with at least three runners, it can make sense to only vote for one candidate, lest the other candidate you might give a vote to as a second preference overtakes your first preference and excludes him or her by virtue of finishing second overall. I'd guess that on the considered recount, John swept up all the votes that weren't outright abstentions into NOA.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

There was no place on the voting form to formally abstain. The absence of a vote was presumably taken as an abstention. The options were to vote for a candidate, or to vote "not this candidate" (I can't remember the exact wording). I do have a vague memory that in the multi-candidate NED election, there was some special provision regarding "none of these candidates".

[John Philpott]

Roger de Coverly wrote

I'd guess that on the considered recount, John swept up all the votes that weren't outright abstentions into NOA

Roger - your guess is wrong. "Not this candidate" in an uncontested election, "Neither candidate" in a two candidate election and "None of the above" in the 3 candidate election for the NEDs represent extreme positions to adopt, and I have only reported votes under these headings where this specific box was ticked on the voting form. Any instances where none of the boxes for a particular election were ticked have been classified as abstentions.