Dear ILFGA Members<br><br><br> This year two members of the ILFGA Executive Committee will be<br>coming to the end of their terms. We'd like to extend our deep thanks
<br>to Bjarne Oersnes and Ida Toivonen for their years of service to our<br>association!<br><br> ILFGA is now conducting elections to fill these two positions on the<br>Executive Committee. The nominating committee of ILFGA has come up
<br>with the following candidates:<br><br>==================<br>Miriam Butt<br><br>Joan Bresnan<br>==================<br><br>This year no additional nominations were submitted by the membership. The nominating committee considered, but rejected the idea of adding additional candidates to the ballot. (We encourage ILFGA members who hope for more competitive elections to nominate themselves or another person for some subsequent election!)
<br><br>I believe most of the ILFGA membership is familiar with the candidates, If you would like more information, you can view information from the ILFGA database on them at:<br><br><a href="http://www-lfg.stanford.edu/lfg/ilfga/member-database/ilfga-namelist.html" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://www-lfg.stanford.edu/lfg/ilfga/member-database/ilfga-namelist.html
</a><br><br> Please vote by sending both me (<a href="mailto:g.broadwell@albany.edu" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
g.broadwell@albany.edu</a>) and Bjarne Oersnes (<a href="mailto:boe.id@cbs.dk">boe.id@cbs.dk</a>) a message with your<br>choices; please do NOT send your ballot to the entire ILFGA mailing
<br>list. (It will help me manage the mail if you put ILFGA in the subject<br>line of your e-mail.)<br><br>Please read the instructions below carefully. All ballots must<br>be received by August 15, 2005.<br><br> Thank you,
<br><br> George Aaron Broadwell<br> ILFGA Secretary-Treasurer<br><br>==================<br><br>International Lexical Functional Grammar Association<br>Executive Committee Ballot<br><br>Please rank as many of the following as you wish, in accord with the instructions below:
<br><br>Joan Bresnan<br><br>Miriam Butt<br><br>====================<br><br><br>!!!VOTING PROCEDURE!!!<br><br>At the LFG01 meeting, it was decided to use preferential voting<br>because past election results had been so close; this worked very well
<br>for subsequent elections and is being continued. The basic idea is that<br>you rank the candidates instead of just choosing two (you need not<br>rank all of them).<br><br>PREFERENTIAL VOTING works like this (description and example are from
<br><a href="http://web.mit.edu/ua/elections/pref.html" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">web.mit.edu/ua/elections/pref.html</a>):<br><br>1. You must pick a first choice. After that, you *may* rank as many
<br>others as<br> you would like.<br><br>2. When the votes are tallied, the computer compiles all the first
<br>choice votes.<br> It then eliminates the candidate with the least number of votes,<br> say Candidate Goofy. The computer then looks at each of the ballots<br> that had Goofy ranked first, counts up all the votes for second
<br> place, and then adds those to the first place ranking for those<br> people. This process continues until one candidate has a majority<br> of the votes. If no candidate gains a simple majority, the process<br> continues until only two candidates are left.
<br><br>Therefore, preferential voting only matters if the person you place<br>first comes out last in any round - then your vote switches to a vote<br>for your second place choice, and so on. Any vote for a candidate, no
<br>matter what rank, is still a vote for him or her, and can only help<br>his/her chances of winning.<br><br>If you don't want to see a particular candidate in office, you should<br>not rank him or her.<br><br>EXAMPLE:
<br><br>First round:<br> Bongo the Gerbil 100 votes<br> A Dancing Monkey in a Top Hat 95 votes<br> Minnie Mouse 58 votes<br> Mickey Mouse 55 votes<br> Goofy 25 votes (Next ranking : 9 votes Dancing Monkey, 6 votes Bongo,
<br>5 vote<br> Mickey, 2 votes Minnie, 3 votes no preference)<br> No Preference 10 votes<br><br>Second round:<br> Bongo 106 votes<br> Dancing Monkey 104 votes<br> Minnie 60 votes (Next ranking : 25 votes Dancing Monkey, 19 votes
<br>Bongo, 16<br> votes no preference)<br> Mickey 60 votes (Next ranking : 22 votes Bongo, 19 votes Dancing<br>Monkey, 19<br> votes no preference)<br> No Preference 13 votes<br><br>Third round:<br> Bongo 147 votes<br>
Dancing Monkey 148 votes<br> No Preference 48<br><br>Notice that A Dancing Monkey in a Top Hat wins the election even though<br>he/she/it did not have the greatest number of first choice votes. THK: In our<br>case, Bongo and Dancing Monkey would win since we are electing two
<br>candidates, which in this example is the same as what happens in the<br>first round.<br><br>====================<br><br><br>