Originally Posted by Mark Croucher

As for the 'maldistribution' of votes, how are they maldistributed? Those 'maldistributed' to one of the candidates in question are simply removed from the equation, and everyone below them moves up one place, exactly as they would have done had the candidate in question not stood at all. The 'maldistribution' you are talking about appears to only occur in a specific set of circumstances, ie where you would vote Andreasen (say) 3rd if she was only standing in the SE, but 7th because she isn't, and would have voted for different people between 4th and 7th dependent upon the circumstances.... hardly the sort of nitpicking to make a huge difference in any case.

I don't know whether the rules of the election were sent out individually to every member, but if not, then one assumes the internet is where they can be found, and posting dual candidacies there meets the same requirement as that which makes the rules public. Regardless, the idea of suspending the election, reissing the ballots and informing each member individually for something of such minor import is nonsensical. Of course, it would have been better to have met incontrovertibly the exact letter of each rule, but these things happen, largely because nobody noticed until it was too late: this is generally the cause of such things. In 2004, nobody noticed we didn't have a manifesto until 3 days before its launch, which is how I came to write it in about 30 mins lol

Of course, it's all far more exciting to ascribe ****-ups to conspiracy theories within the leadership, but the reality is as I posted in my previous message: the few managers are overworked and understaffed, reliant upon inexperienced volunteers of often dubious quality. But no-one wants to comment on that, do they, because it spoils the fun.

M