STRANGE THINGS DONE
UNDER THE MIDNIGHT SUNby Gregory Wonderwheel
Revised by Kathy
(1365 words)
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I had a great time for two nights processing and counting ballots in the first ever KPFA LAB election. WOW!! It was fun. Up past midnight, the die-hard proportional representation and LAB election geeks peering at the computer screen. There were 5538 valid ballots counted. Privileged to have had a small role in the election process, I want everyone to know there are many congratulations deserved by many people who brought this off.
Special mention should go to David Greene, the Election Coordinator, who dealt with contentious issues throughout the process and kept it moving along. John Sheridan and Curtis Gray were tireless in getting the election out over the air. Debra Gomez and Caleb Kleppner did a fantastic job on the ballots and coordinating the work with internet balloting. Steve Willet shepherded the computers and program tabulation and ran the ballot counting program.
However, I’m constantly amazed and, being who I am, have to comment with critique. Where I expected transparency and openness, when the count was over, many people appeared nervous about announcing to the rooftops the results of the elections. I was outraged to find the candidates were told to stay away. Candidates frequently hang around the counting room in local elections, making appearances for interviews about the returns.
And where were the KPFA reporters? Why weren’t the results instantly reported, broadcast live? Unofficial results are what everyone hears on every election night. Elections don’t become official for weeks but the excitement is when the counting goes on. This could have been a wonderful experience broadcasting hourly updates on the process with a blow by blow on-air report when the final count was made.
I am saddened that as the vote counting ushers us into a new era, we see vestiges of secrecy from the rotten Pacifica culture that has led to the very election we should be celebrating. Transparency isn’t a token to play against your opponents; it’s a lifestyle to live up to daily.
Enough cud chewing. Here are the "unofficial" results:
Eleven candidates were elected:
7 to two-year terms--Kahlil Jacobs Fantauzzi, Carol Spooner, Maria Gilardin, Alice Chan, Mark Hernandez, Diane Solomon and Joe Wanzala
4 to one-year terms--Les Radke, Irwin Silber, Thenmozhi Soundararajan and Fadi Saba
3 "grandfathered" LAB members--Sherry Gendelman, Pele de Lappe and Jay Imani.
The election counting, in a simplified version, went something like this:
To be elected, a candidate had to receive 462 votes. (5538/462 equals minimum votes needed to elect 11 people.) In the first round, the program was run to establish the list of candidates in a ranked order (ranked in order that candidates met threshhold of 462 votes). Then that list was reviewed for the diversity criteria required to make the results balanced between men, women and "people of color", "not of color." The second round established who would go "up" the list to meet the criteria to be elected, and then the counting was done again to see if it changed the outcome of any other candidate.
ROUND ONE. In the first count, only first choice votes were counted. Each person had one first choice vote. If voters used "X’s" for more than one candidate, all were counted as 1 and their votes were distributed as factions (e.g. 1/8 to each of 8 candidates marked with x). Without computers this could not have been done efficiently and that ballot would have been discarded as not following the directions of ranking the candidates.
Every candidate got some first preference votes. But in the first count, only four people received enough first choice votes to be elected. In order, they were Kahlil Jacobs-Fantauzzi, Carol Spooner, Maria Gilardin, Alice Chan.
The rest of the election counting consisted of transferring votes. First, the surplus votes from the first four elected were transferred in turn to the second choice candidates on each ballot. With the computer, this transfer was done in the most accurate way by transferring fractions of votes so that every vote still had only one whole vote that was partially distributed to the other candidates as surplus votes.
Next, the losing candidates, starting from the bottom of the list, were eliminated one by one with their votes transferred to the second choice candidates on those ballots as whole votes. If the ballot had multiple "1" votes, then the votes for that person’s preferences for their other first choice candidates would be increased by the fraction made available by the candidate being eliminated. For example, if eight candidates had been the voter’s first choice, then the 1/8 vote among those candidates would be changed to 1/7 vote for the remaining candidates. This elimination of the losing candidates continued until by accumulation of votes by transfer, a candidate got over 462 votes and was elected. Then the next transfer distributed any of that candidate’s "surplus" votes over 462. Next the elimination from the bottom would begin again until another candidate got over 462 and then that candidate’s surplus was transferred.
With 28 steps of transferring the surplus and eliminated votes, the process was complete. Then the analysis for diversity was needed. Counting down for the first eleven candidates, there were two men of color, one woman of color, four women not of color and four men not of color. The diversity procedure then determined what combination of people would result in a 14-person LAB with none of the four categories (men, women, people of color, people not of color) having more than eight or less than six to get the required balance. (Remember the 3 hold-over candidates were two women not of color and one man of color.) The review of the top 11 on the list showed the mix of men and women was adequate but there were two people of color short. Where there should have been a minimum of 5 people of color (with Imani as number 6) there were only 3 and a maximum of 6 people not of color (counting Gendelman and de Lappe as 7 and 8) there were 8.
ROUND TWO. Therefore, the 3 people of color in the first eleven and the two highest ranked people of color (men because of the way the first eleven were ranked) not in the first eleven were tagged as "undefeatable" so that the votes for them would not be transferred away. The ballot counting program was run again. This time the top eleven were ranked in 27 counts. The practical result was that John Anastasio and Stan Woods, who had made the first cut of counting, were displaced by the two men of color, Joseph Wanzala and Fadi Saba. (Remember, the election process calls for any vacancies during the year to be filled by the highest candidate on the also-ran list who will not violate the diversity criteria.)
LASTLY: To determine which would be in the first cohort of 7 candidates with two-year terms, the list was reviewed starting at the top. The lowest ranked person who upset the diversity criteria was displaced to the one-year term cohort with the next highest ranked person not upsetting the balance taking that place. In this process, Les Radke was changed to a one-year term and Joseph Wanzala was raised to a two-year term.
THAT’S IT. That’s how the election was counted in as few words as I can report to say what happened with enough substance to have something to digest. David Greene has a full report with the pages of each vote count transfer.
Don’t forget, the election cost real money to produce. We still need to do fundraising to retire the debt for those costs. So please support the election process. The printing, mailing and Internet voting cost $8100. The station is not paying for any of this. We, the listening community, have to pay for it. After we win the lawsuits and kick out the pseudo Pacifica directors, Pacifica can support the election. Until then, please send contributions to:
CPR, PO Box 13349, Berkeley, CA 94712.
On the memo line, write in "KPFA LAB Election." Donations of over $300 are tax deductible if you make them out to "CVD" and send to the same address.
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