Posted by Admiral Joe P (Librarian / TECH Chairman) in EGO Election Results

Posted by Rear Admiral Daniel Lerner (Personnel Director, EGO) in EGO Election Results

Posted by Sidney Parker in EGO Election Results
Posted by… suppressed (4) by the Post Ghost! 👻

SNIP

I would really like to see other faces in EGO. We’ve had basically had the same eight people in EGO since the beginning and never a Fleet Captain. There should be a period of time, say five years, where all previous members of EGO are locked out to stop the popularity contest and allow at least some members that have been eligible but locked out for years the opportunity to serve. FCAPTs and above were awarded their pips for exceptional service to the club but many have been forever trapped at that point, either by not being in the “in crowd” or not being able to live in IRC/Discord. This, like the FCOMM situation, has to change or it becomes pointless and nothing more than another “old guard” cookie to be passed around only among the club’s aristocracy.

Jerome

Jerome, I hate to do this, but… you need a dose of reality pretty bad.

You’ve been a Fleet Captain for 4 years. There have been 6 EGO elections in that time. Your question about having a ballot sent to you is proof that you haven’t voted in any of those elections because you simply haven’t cared to understand how any of them work, until now. And even then, you didn’t care to simply ask me after the big news item went up. I even wrote you when you sent your name to me to be on the ballot, that the ballot would be up on Friday. I checked, I looked at the email I sent you. I actually used the words: “You are eligible as far as I can tell and will be on the ballot on Friday.” Why didn’t you ask me this question on Friday or Saturday if you cared about it? Why is it a week and a half later, with you pretending that you are “just being curious”, when you obviously think there was some sort of conspiracy against you.

The only person who locked you out is yourself.

I have met your enemy, and he is you.

– Joe

“I would heartily disagree on the last point. EGO was instituted as a measure of institutional memory and a final check and balance on a potentially runaway president. They represent STF, its members, and their will. EGO was never intended to be a training ground or an office in which people could learn about government. It was deliberately and carefully crafted to ensure that it would always be composed of extremely experienced government officers of high rank, with a vast storehouse of knowledge and experience.
For the rule about the eight month cooldown period, this was established to ensure that we didn’t end up with a ruling cabal, but a continually rotating series of experienced and involved senior members who could step in during extreme circumstances and provide a final measure of protection for the club and its membership. The rule explicitly addresses full EGO terms, not partials in special elections. As I’d mentioned, it was discussed, but determined that a measure of flexibility on the part of the EC was warranted under the irregularities section of LEGOE. We were comfortable with it back then because we understood that if it ever became too burdensome or the members wished it, a mechanism existed to amend EEEGO to address that particular situation. “

Thank you Andrew for the historical background. That is always nice to have and I was hoping someone with that knowledge would answer here.

I do understand EGO and its purpose and your right. However there are others who have that level of experience that need an opportunity to share it and give EGO more diversity in perspective and experiences. I don’t have an issue with anyone else who has ever served on EGO. That is not the purpose of my discussion point. Lets just say Kat did not or could not run this time. We would have had Geoff in this time. Am I wrong because I do not remember him ever being on EGO? When I started I personally learned a lot from Geoff, mostly by example. He has a long career here and I am sure would have added a new and unique perspective to the group. So no the main reason for EGO is not as a training ground but if we do not train or get others in then what? I mean every position should be thought of in the context of replacing myself. Not with anyone but with the qualified group we already identified in the rules. I mean are the Fleet Captains there for voter fodder or do we want them to get in? Because if its all about just giving advice and jumping in during a turbulence to apply direct institutional knowledge to an administrative issue then lets just say only former Presidents and Vice Presidents can apply?

So theoretically if we had the 8 month limit in place Geoff would be in and the system would maintain itself and new perspective would enter into the system. Which in my opinion is great and even can help the ones who tend to run and win learn a new way to look at something. Maybe. My idea of starting this was to follow our prescribed manner of discussing an issue, seeing if it has merit and then deciding if I t was in the best interest of the Club to make a proposal. That is where I am at personally at this moment.

Sidney

Umm… I can actually check what would happen if Kat was not in the race if people want me to, but it doesn’t immediately follow that if Kat were not in, that Geoff would have been the winner.

Basically, because of how IRV works, Geoff emerged as the second place in the final because he’s a broadly unobjectionable alternative to Kat, once everyone else was eliminated. It doesn’t follow that he would still be the winner if Kat were never there, because Kat’s voters would have voted for other people, too, and those people might be not-Geoff.

Plus, Geoff emerging as second place in the final round is also based on a fair amount of luck, because he could have been just as easily randomly eliminated early the way that Brandon and Ray were. I think there are a lot of people who could have ended up in his final position, because a lot of people who ran could be considered broadly unobjectionable.

I haven’t checked what the case without Kat was, but if I had to bet, I’d say that Adam would probably have been the winner, just because he was the second most popular candidate in the first round, so it’s very likely that a he would be the second choice of a lot of Kat voters. I haven’t deleted the votes yet, so I could check what it would have looked like if Kat were not in the race if people are actually interested in this or other hypotheticals.

As a side note, I think the only person who ran for EGO this time who has been on EGO before besides Kat is Steven Sigle. I think it was more than 5 years ago, but he can correct me if I am wrong; I only remember because he was there during the Drew Diamond debacle.

Joe

I would not object in seeing the results. Mostly to better understand the system and see the impact. I mean it would be nice to apply some scenarios to it and see how fair it really is. Even if the majority does not want to see this displayed it might be useful to see for Club leadership, to include EGO, to test this out and see how the system is functioning or are there flaws we can improve on in the way we do this.

Sidney

I would object to the results being released to show who would have won if Kat had not run. I totally understand Sid’s point about transparency and improvement. But there is a precedent being set here if we do that. The ballots are intentionally secret. While it may be possible to use the posted results to infer how a small number of ballots ranked their first or second choice (and in one or two cases, maybe their third choice), we can’t infer the majority of the ballots, and we specifically don’t know how people who voted for Kat would have otherwise voted. They are secret for a reason, and I think there would need to be a lot more discussion and debate before we opened up that Pandora’s box. There may be good policy to do this - I don’t know - but we can’t just do it on a whim.

I will default to not doing it then unless there is an overwhelming request for it or some additional policy guidance that is issued by the President that is also consistent with all other bylaws.

I will say however, that I didn’t intend to breach the secrecy of any ballot by suggesting this. In my mind ballot secrecy would not be automatically be violated by doing this, as the mechanism of ranked choice voting is known to everyone in advance and the fact that voters who ranked Kat first would have ranked other people second, and that this preference could be revealed as part of the process was also known to everyone in advance.

But, like I said I will err on the side of caution here.

Is there anything specifically gained by running this hypothetical that would justify us going deeper into the otherwise secret ballots?

Daniel

There is value in learning how these mechanisms work. People who aren’t used to Instant Runoff Voting may find it confusing, as its use is not common in the United States and other countries. It would lessen confusion if we had a practical, relatable example.

We could also potentially disprove and dispense with conspiracy theories regarding how aristocratic types such as ourselves pass each other cookies and conspire to oppress Fleet Captains?

Joe

As long as our super-secret cabal stays super-secret. (Wait, I think I suck at being a member of a super-secret cabal.)

I’m not necessarily 100% opposed to the info being released - but I just wouldn’t want it done on a whim either.

Daniel