Voting Results Overview
Term of Office for SVLUG President/Vice President (Sept 2004)

17 votes were tallied.
Choice Abbrev Description
#1 01-2YEARS-OK The tradition is 2-year terms. Don't change it.
#2 04-1YEAR-OK The terms should be changed to 1 year terms.
#3 07-IEEE-OK Borrow a system from a local IEEE chapter - the president-elect serves as assistant to the president for a year before actually becoming president for a year.
#4 06-1YEARS-RUN 1 year terms are acceptable to me - I may consider running now or in the future for such a term.
#5 02-2YEARS-NO No, 2-year terms are too long.
#6 03-2YEARS-RUN 2 year terms are acceptable to me - I may consider running now or in the future for such a term.
#7 08-IEEE-NO No, don't use the IEEE system because that's the purpose of the VP, and it doesn't bring an elected candidate to office immediately.
#8 05-1YEAR-NO No, 1-year terms are too short.
#9 09-IEEE-RUN The IEEE system is acceptable to me - I may consider running now or in the future for such a term.

Description of Voting Topic

This vote is now closed

Feedback we're hearing while looking for candidates for SVLUG President and Vice President indicate that there may be interest in changing the term of the office from the current two years. Please rank all of the following statements which you agree with at all, in numerical order starting from strongest agreement (1, as in 1st choice) to the number of the last choice with which you agree. (Be honest about whether you'd consider running now or in the future, because it helps distinguish plain opinions from effects on future volunteers. Yes, we might contact you if we have trouble finding candidates. But if you can't help right now, we'll just have to accept no for an answer.)

For more information see the corp.sbay.org web site. This poll will close Tuesday, September 7 at 5PM Pacific Time.

Background info: Dan Kionka founded the group originally as a PC Unix SIG in 1988, which quickly became a Linux group in the early 90's. He ran the group for 10 years until it was ready to fly on its own. The tradition of 2-year terms for the SVLUG President was established when Ben Spade became the first elected SVLUG president in 1998-1999. Chris DiBona was president in 2000, but had to step down after a year when he was moving out of the area. So the 2-year terms were shifted back a year to begin in odd-numbered years. Marc Merlin was president in 2001-2002. Don Marti is the current president, serving for the 2003-2004 term.

Detailed Results

This vote uses a Single Transferable Voting (STV) system, which is a simple form of "preference voting", so that voters can cast first, second, third, and more preferences for their vote. If a majority can't be reached, the last choice is eliminated and the count starts over looking for the highest preference. More information on STV and other voting systems can be found at

Single Transferable Vote (Wikipedia)
Single Transferable Vote (Google Directory)
Elections: Results and Voting systems (UK)
a student's STV page (Finland)

This vote was handled by Vote::STV (a Perl module) by Ian Kluft. Source code is available at http://www.kluft.com/~ikluft/opensource/code/

The following tables show in detail how the results were obtained. Each of the "rounds" shown were separate passes through the data by the vote-counting software. Multiple passes are necessary to count an STV-style vote.

Round #1
17.000 valid votes, 8.500 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
01-2YEARS-OK 6.000 35.29%  
04-1YEAR-OK 3.000 17.65%  
07-IEEE-OK 3.000 17.65%  
06-1YEARS-RUN 2.000 11.76%  
02-2YEARS-NO 2.000 11.76%  
03-2YEARS-RUN 1.000 5.88%  
05-1YEAR-NO 0.000 0.00% eliminated
08-IEEE-NO 0.000 0.00% eliminated
09-IEEE-RUN 0.000 0.00% eliminated

Round #2
17.000 valid votes, 8.500 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
01-2YEARS-OK 6.000 35.29%  
04-1YEAR-OK 3.000 17.65%  
07-IEEE-OK 3.000 17.65%  
06-1YEARS-RUN 2.000 11.76%  
02-2YEARS-NO 2.000 11.76%  
03-2YEARS-RUN 1.000 5.88% eliminated

Round #3
17.000 valid votes, 8.500 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
01-2YEARS-OK 6.000 35.29%  
04-1YEAR-OK 3.000 17.65%  
06-1YEARS-RUN 3.000 17.65%  
07-IEEE-OK 3.000 17.65%  
02-2YEARS-NO 2.000 11.76% eliminated

Round #4
17.000 valid votes, 8.500 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
01-2YEARS-OK 6.000 35.29%  
04-1YEAR-OK 5.000 29.41%  
06-1YEARS-RUN 3.000 17.65% eliminated
07-IEEE-OK 3.000 17.65% eliminated

Round #5
15.000 valid votes, 7.500 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
01-2YEARS-OK 8.000 53.33% winner for Choice #1 (93.750% of each vote used, 6.250% transfers)
04-1YEAR-OK 7.000 46.67%  

Round #6
11.250 valid votes, 5.625 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
07-IEEE-OK 3.188 28.33%  
04-1YEAR-OK 3.000 26.67%  
06-1YEARS-RUN 2.000 17.78%  
02-2YEARS-NO 2.000 17.78%  
03-2YEARS-RUN 1.000 8.89%  
05-1YEAR-NO 0.062 0.56%  
08-IEEE-NO 0.000 0.00% eliminated
09-IEEE-RUN 0.000 0.00% eliminated

Round #7
11.250 valid votes, 5.625 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
07-IEEE-OK 3.188 28.33%  
04-1YEAR-OK 3.000 26.67%  
06-1YEARS-RUN 2.000 17.78%  
02-2YEARS-NO 2.000 17.78%  
03-2YEARS-RUN 1.000 8.89%  
05-1YEAR-NO 0.062 0.56% eliminated

Round #8
11.188 valid votes, 5.594 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
07-IEEE-OK 3.188 28.49%  
04-1YEAR-OK 3.000 26.82%  
06-1YEARS-RUN 2.000 17.88%  
02-2YEARS-NO 2.000 17.88%  
03-2YEARS-RUN 1.000 8.94% eliminated

Round #9
11.188 valid votes, 5.594 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
07-IEEE-OK 3.188 28.49%  
04-1YEAR-OK 3.000 26.82%  
06-1YEARS-RUN 3.000 26.82%  
02-2YEARS-NO 2.000 17.88% eliminated

Round #10
11.188 valid votes, 5.594 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
04-1YEAR-OK 5.000 44.69%  
07-IEEE-OK 3.188 28.49%  
06-1YEARS-RUN 3.000 26.82% eliminated

Round #11
9.188 valid votes, 4.594 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
04-1YEAR-OK 6.000 65.31% winner for Choice #2 (76.562% of each vote used, 23.438% transfers)
07-IEEE-OK 3.188 34.69%  

Round #12
8.719 valid votes, 4.359 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
07-IEEE-OK 3.188 36.56%  
02-2YEARS-NO 2.469 28.32%  
06-1YEARS-RUN 2.000 22.94%  
03-2YEARS-RUN 1.000 11.47%  
05-1YEAR-NO 0.062 0.72%  
08-IEEE-NO 0.000 0.00% eliminated
09-IEEE-RUN 0.000 0.00% eliminated

Round #13
8.719 valid votes, 4.359 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
07-IEEE-OK 3.188 36.56%  
02-2YEARS-NO 2.469 28.32%  
06-1YEARS-RUN 2.000 22.94%  
03-2YEARS-RUN 1.000 11.47%  
05-1YEAR-NO 0.062 0.72% eliminated

Round #14
8.656 valid votes, 4.328 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
07-IEEE-OK 3.188 36.82%  
02-2YEARS-NO 2.469 28.52%  
06-1YEARS-RUN 2.000 23.10%  
03-2YEARS-RUN 1.000 11.55% eliminated

Round #15
8.656 valid votes, 4.328 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
07-IEEE-OK 3.188 36.82%  
06-1YEARS-RUN 3.000 34.66%  
02-2YEARS-NO 2.469 28.52% eliminated

Round #16
6.891 valid votes, 3.445 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
07-IEEE-OK 3.891 56.46% winner for Choice #3 (88.554% of each vote used, 11.446% transfers)
06-1YEARS-RUN 3.000 43.54%  

Round #17
5.531 valid votes, 2.766 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
02-2YEARS-NO 2.469 44.63%  
06-1YEARS-RUN 2.000 36.16%  
03-2YEARS-RUN 1.000 18.08%  
05-1YEAR-NO 0.062 1.13%  
08-IEEE-NO 0.000 0.00% eliminated
09-IEEE-RUN 0.000 0.00% eliminated

Round #18
5.531 valid votes, 2.766 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
02-2YEARS-NO 2.469 44.63%  
06-1YEARS-RUN 2.000 36.16%  
03-2YEARS-RUN 1.000 18.08%  
05-1YEAR-NO 0.062 1.13% eliminated

Round #19
5.469 valid votes, 2.734 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
02-2YEARS-NO 2.469 45.14%  
06-1YEARS-RUN 2.000 36.57%  
03-2YEARS-RUN 1.000 18.29% eliminated

Round #20
5.469 valid votes, 2.734 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
06-1YEARS-RUN 3.000 54.86% winner for Choice #4 (91.146% of each vote used, 8.854% transfers)
02-2YEARS-NO 2.469 45.14%  

Round #21
3.552 valid votes, 1.776 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
02-2YEARS-NO 2.469 69.50% winner for Choice #5 (71.939% of each vote used, 28.061% transfers)
03-2YEARS-RUN 1.000 28.15%  
05-1YEAR-NO 0.062 1.76%  
08-IEEE-NO 0.021 0.58%  
09-IEEE-RUN 0.000 0.00%  

Round #22
1.083 valid votes, 0.542 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
03-2YEARS-RUN 1.000 92.31% winner for Choice #6 (54.163% of each vote used, 45.837% transfers)
05-1YEAR-NO 0.062 5.77%  
08-IEEE-NO 0.021 1.92%  
09-IEEE-RUN 0.000 0.00%  

Round #23
0.542 valid votes, 0.271 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
08-IEEE-NO 0.479 88.46% winner for Choice #7 (56.522% of each vote used, 43.478% transfers)
05-1YEAR-NO 0.062 11.54%  
09-IEEE-RUN 0.000 0.00%  

Round #24
0.064 valid votes, 0.032 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
05-1YEAR-NO 0.062 98.18% winner for Choice #8 (50.928% of each vote used, 49.072% transfers)
09-IEEE-RUN 0.001 1.82%  

Round #25
0.001 valid votes, 0.001 required to win
Selection Votes Percent Notes
09-IEEE-RUN 0.001 100.00% winner for Choice #9 (50.000% of each vote used, 50.000% transfers)