[EM] Forward

[fsimmons at pcc.edu]

Here's a more readable copy of the message I forwarded:

Dear Forest W. Simmons:
 
This e-mail is a reply to your e-mail sent to me on the following date: October
28, 2010.
 
Iain Calder, the President of the Toronto Free-Net, and myself are both in
favour of your suggestion to post to the "election methods listserv".

I, Howard Lastman, am a member of the Board of Directors of the Toronto Free-Net
Inc.

The Toronto Free-Net Inc. is a not-for-profit, volunteer run, organization that
is Toronto's oldest internet service provider.

The following is the homepage URL for the Toronto Free-Net Inc.:

http://www.torfree.net/

There are eight positions on the Board of Directors of the Toronto Free-Net. The
Board has staggered terms of three years. Hence, the maximum "district
magnitude" is three in any election. Smaller district magnitudes are possible in
some years. In order to fill casual vacancies there may be as many as three
(temporal and not spatial) districts being elected at once with each voter
receiving a separate ballot (or on-line equivalent) for each temporal district.

Director Chris Johnson's motion contained in "TFN-BOD-Motion-1.jpg" requires the
following minor modifications to pure Sequential Proportional Approval Voting:

(1) each voter is prohibited from voting for more candidates than there are
positions (this limitation does not exist in pure Sequential Proportional
Approval Voting); and

(2) for the on-line version, the computer must display a (confirmation) screen
containing the candidates that the voter has selected and no others.
 
Further, our President, Iain Calder, has suggested the need for pro-active
tie-breaking random inputs. This means that at the Annual General Meeting of the
Toronto Free-Net, immediately before voting for the Board of Directors begins,
the CRO shall conduct a lottery which shall produce a rank ordering of all the
candidates contesting a given election. The rank ordering from the lottery shall
be declared to the membership and entered into the computer and shall be used to
break all ties. Any computer software must accommodate this.

Also, our President, Iain Calder requires that any software be free software,
run on standard off-the-shelf hardware, and run on Linux OS. For reasons of
transparency, the software must be open source.
In order to avoid re-inventing the wheel, it would be great if someone could
write the program as a "plug-in" for OpenSTV (which is free software). See the
following URL:
 
http://www.openstv.org/approval-voting

If someone would code such a plug-in, we would be eager to acknowledge the
programmer, and we would enjoy making the anonymized data available for research
purposes only. However, the very concept of free software would mean that we
could not be bound by these or any other conditions. 

Hope to hear from you soon.

Yours truly,


Howard Lastman, LL.B., MBA,
Barrister & Solicitor.
hemlastman at yahoo.ca
----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Iain Calder <dn097 at torfree.net>
To: H. Lastman <hemlastman at yahoo.ca>
Sent: Sun, October 31, 2010 8:13:49 PM
Subject: Re: Forward of e-mail reply from Forest W. Simmons

Sure.

Make sure he is aware of the free software that we have
already found and that could be put to use with the mere
addition of a plug-in, so that people don't go reinventing
the wheel out of ignorance.

-ic

On Sun, 31 Oct 2010, H. Lastman wrote:

> What do you think about Forest Simmons suggestion to post to the
> "election methods listserv"?
>
> I had to use the phrase "open source" in my e-mail to Forest Simmons
> because Portland Community College blocks all e-mails that include the
> phrase "free software."
[..]
> ----- Forwarded Message ----
> From: "fsimmons at pcc.edu" <fsimmons at pcc.edu>
> To: H. Lastman <hemlastman at yahoo.ca>
> Sent: Thu, October 28, 2010 5:47:31 PM
> Subject: Re: Sequential Proportional Approval Voting
>
> Dear Mr. Lastman,
>
> I would like to forward your request to the election methods listserv
> which is brimming with software engineers and other programmers that are
> chomping at the bit for opportunities like this.
>
> Is that OK with you?
>
> My Best,
>
> Forest
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "H. Lastman"
> Date: Thursday, October 28, 2010 5:02 am
> Subject: Sequential Proportional Approval Voting
> To: fsimmons at pcc.edu
> Cc: Iain Calder
>
> > Dear Forest W. Simmons:
> >
> >
> > I am a member of the Board of Directors of a not-for-profit
> > corporation. We are
> > trying to implement the "Sequential Proportional Approval
> > Voting" system within
> > our organization. I am contacting you, because you are the
> > discoverer of
> > "Proportional Approval Voting" and a leading expert and
> > proponent of
> > Proportional Approval Voting systems. Can you or anyone else
> > that you know of
> > help us acquire or generate open source software for the
> > tallying of ballots
> > under Sequential Proportional Approval Voting?
> >
> > Further, is there any sort of empirical data collection that we
> > can help you
> > with in the running of an actual Sequential Proportional
> > Approval Voting
> > election?
> >
> > Hope to hear from you soon.
> >
> > Yours truly,
> >
> >
> > Howard Lastman.
> > hemlastman at yahoo.ca
> >
> >
>
>
>