----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Weller" dougweller@gmail.com To: "UK Wikimedia mailing list" wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sunday, 30 September, 2012 6:35:55 AM Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] WMUK board election process
Thank you for this. From my viewpoint your explanation (with which I agree) is a strong arugment for STV.
From my own experience, I would note that whilst STV is perfect for electing a single person it is very far from acceptable when electing a number of people because of the requirement to survive the first round of analysis. If someone has minimal support as a first choice but very wide support as a second or third choice they may be ejected before that wide support can be accounted for, especially if one candidate in the first round takes 80% or so of the first choices (making their distributed partial second preferences far 'stronger', in effect.) I have seen almost entire committees wiped out in this way despite - once you looked at the lower-preference votes - them retaining wide support. STV really isn't up to the job.
Approval voting, whilst itself not perfect, does far better at selecting for a number of positions.
AlisonW