English Coaches ... Team England Committee Election 2018

[Wulfyn]

Nominations are now closed, thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread.

I'll update the top post a little later this evening with details of how to vote including the change to up to 4 votes per coach.

I'm confused as to why the system is half changing at this late stage. For me deeferdan's suggestion of 4 votes was inherently tied into the preferential ranking. I understand why some might not like that (although there seems to be some positive noise for it), but who has advocated increasing the number to 4 on a non preferential basis?

Dan, can you clarify?

[speedingbullet]

As an additional thought to the above the ranking element is an additional complication that you may feel you can do without. But offereing the capacity to give up to four votes (the same as the number of positions) is the key IMHO.

Dan followed up his original proposal re changing the voting system with the post that I've quoted above. The proposal then received a lot of support. It is this version that I've adopted.

[Wulfyn]

A lot of support?

[speedingbullet]

The proposal to change from 2 to 4 seemed to receive support from Pipey, Leipziger, Indiana-Utah, Flick and Besters and I'm ok with it too, giving it support from 6 of the 8 nominees and with no comment on it from the other two nominees. I wasn't clear there was the same level of support for the ranking system.

[deeferdan]

Nominations are now closed, thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread.

I'll update the top post a little later this evening with details of how to vote including the change to up to 4 votes per coach.

I'm confused as to why the system is half changing at this late stage. For me deeferdan's suggestion of 4 votes was inherently tied into the preferential ranking. I understand why some might not like that (although there seems to be some positive noise for it), but who has advocated increasing the number to 4 on a non preferential basis?

Dan, can you clarify?

Sorry for opening this can of worms... you're doing a sterling job Jim.

Dan, as Jim pointed out, in a roundabout way I suggested two routes that can be taken with the voting, The more simplified widening to the number of places. Or the more representative (but equally more complex) proportional ranking system.
My additional missive was added after I'd given it further thought, and considered that the most important thing (at this stage) was to avoid the very real risk of the committee's size being limited solely by the voting system.

Personally I'm totally OK with Jim just broadening the votes, especially at this late stage in the proceedings, maintaining the minimum of 5 votes for eligibility too to ensure some level of threshold. In the longer term I think a ranked voting approach would be sensible.

Perhaps this sort of thing can be the sort of stuff the committee can iron out.

[Leipziger]

I agree with Dan A’s points above.


Related point. We could do with having a tie-breaker in place in the event that 5+ coaches meet the vote threshold.

- Captain’s pick? That puts a lot on the captain.
- a further vote between those eligible for the committee but with the least votes?
- dice-off?
- if people vote for 4 and rank them the coach with the highest number of 1st place votes go through? (Preferences only come in the event of a tie)
- Something else

[Wulfyn]

Should it be up to the nominees to decide how others should vote for them? Is the future of how team england is selected really going to come down to a couple of people (many with a vested intetest) making it up as they go along?

I thought the whole point of this exercise that Geoff started was to be more inclusive with the wider community. And now we are justifying the change based on what 6 or so people are ok with?

[deeferdan]

Should it be up to the nominees to decide how others should vote for them? Is the future of how team england is selected really going to come down to a couple of people (many with a vested intetest) making it up as they go along?

I thought the whole point of this exercise that Geoff started was to be more inclusive with the wider community. And now we are justifying the change based on what 6 or so people are ok with?

I take your point Dan, but at this stage, and in the interest of moving things forward, I guess a degree of pragmatism in the approach is needed.
I just made the suggested change as I saw it as being in the best interest of the process.

It's likely that the turnout for this vote won't be all that representative, but in a sense we are where we are, and we are (at the very least) no less representative than wen this whole process started.

[speedingbullet]

It was my intention to initiate the voting this evening. However, I guess there is no need to rush into it tonight. So I'll postpone the initiation for at least 24 hours to give a little more time for people to post views on the next stage of the process.

Alex, hopefully a tie breaker won't be necessary but you are right, there should be a tie breaker in place just in case. Of your options, I favour the idea of a dice off.

[Pipey]

Related point. We could do with having a tie-breaker in place in the event that 5+ coaches meet the vote threshold.

First tiebreaker after meeting the minimum vote threshold is net number of votes, right? Dead heat seems unlikely, obviously possible.

Don't know what we do if there was a tie such that the four committee places can't be decided. Agreed, toss of coin or dice off I guess. Or revote

I think Jim is doing a decent job leading this process and will follow his judgment on the change to voting rules. Seems reasonable.

Hi Dan (Wulf) - making it up as we go along? Yes. But no less so than before and now more transparent and inclusive.

[mubo]

Broadly agree with Wulfyn. Does feel a little bit of a late change.

Jim (SB): Not doubting impartiality at all, but given that you are standing, probably is an idea to hand over the reins on this, and let whoever the new "returning officer" is to make the final call on the voting. Does that sound reasonable?

[Wulfyn]

But what is the rush exactly? There's no EB next year because of the world cup, so the committee is being formed to work out what is traditionally a Dec 2019 captain's vote. Even if this process takes another 3 months (and I'm not suggesting that anything like that should happen) that still gives a full year for the committee to work out what the rules should be.

Voting systems are important, and anyone who is taking Team England seriously should take the voting system seriously. I think we've done a great job so far in how we have moved through the process, but this voting system feels just awfully implemented. I disagree that it is more representative (6/8 of the people standing is far from representative), and I disagree that it is more transparent (no single formal proposal has been made, we've gone from one person's problematic suggestion to another person's watered down suggestion). And a 24 hour delay is hardly transparent either.

For example if I voted for 4 people then there is a chance that my 4th preference vote will knock out my 1st preference candidate. Similarly I could end up choosing to vote for my 5th preference over my 4th because I think that they have a greater chance of knocking out my 7th preference who I don't want to be on the committee. So this leads to split and tactical voting. And you may reply with something like 'what are the chances of that', but remember that we have already looked to up the voting from top 2 to top 4 because nobody expected so many candidates. Never underestimate the ways in which you can be wrong or surprised.

I get that people are keen to get on with things. I share than keenness. But let's not have the compromise of a terrible voting system that a handful of the people standing decided upon for the sake of a rush that simply does not exist. We have a system. We have the candidates. Let's look properly at the voting system before going down a road that we cannot go back on.

[mubo]

Agree. Getting the voting system "right" is a good use of time I think. Also agree that candidates shouldn't have any increased say in which we end up picking.

[Wulfyn]

I'm posting again here because I am aware that my replies so far have been questioning the process, and I should give an example of what I think a better system is.

Now no voting system is perfect (this is not just opinion, it has been proven), so the trick is to try and have a system that best fits with the nature of the vote at hand. Given that we have an election for multiple candidates (rather than a single winner), and because we have a relatively low number of total candidates (8 as opposed to 20+), I would propose that we use a form of IRV - Instant Runoff Voting. This (mostly) solves the issue of split and tactical votes. It works a bit like how the Olympics city is voted for, but without multiple rounds of voting, and to elect multiple positions rather than just one. Again this system below is not perfect but I think it is much stronger than the proposals so far.

• Everyone voting has to list all 8 candidates in preference from best to worst.
• The top 4 candidates from each voters' list gets 1 point.
• The candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and removed from everyone's list.
• The lists are then recalculated so that everyone has a new top 4 (if one of your top 4 was eliminated this now means your 5th choice gets a vote).
• Again the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and removed from everyone's list.
• This continues until we only have 4 candidates left, and they are the ones appointed.
• If there is a tie for fewest votes then the candidate with the most 1st places stays in; if that is a tie then the most 2nd places stays in, etc.
• If it is still a tie and eliminating all tied candidates will leave us with 4 or more then all are eliminated. If this takes us to under 4 candidates left then lots are drawn.
• My suggestion for lots is that all tied candidates are assigned the 1st, 2nd, 3rd (etc.) balls from the main Saturday UK lotto in alphabetical NAF name order, and the highest numbers are kept in.
• All candidates standing are also allowed to vote (you would assume they'd all put themselves 1st and it allows them to vote on others)

Given the expected low number of votes (under 200) this is extremely simple to calculate and run as well. Due to the increased complexity, and because we value transparency, whoever the returning officer is should have a number of witnesses (I'd suggest 2 or 3) who can review for mistakes and validate that the results are correct. Also I think it is important, for transparency, that the returning officer not be one of the candidates standing. It's not that I have any doubts as to your honesty Jim, but it is just simply inappropriate for someone standing to be in charge of declaring a result. But whoever the returning officer is I'd be happy to support them in implementing the above process.

[Pipey]

I think most would acknowledge that after lots of vibrant discussion on the launch of TE@TFF, things did get bogged down by nitty gritty. I read of a number of people being turned off a little, citing "TLDR fatigue". So a simple system of voting that is easily understood seems helpful.

I do agree in principle we need to get the voting system right. The last thing we would want to do is look back and see we got it wrong, that the community were in some way prevented from electing the committee in a fair and proper way.

I'm no John Curtice, but the iteration that Speeding Jim suggests (vote for up to four candidates) seems OK to me - a balance between precise election science and something people are going to engage with?



Maybe Mubo is right that someone independent (I believe our returning officer is Sann, Scottish Eurobowler with no stake) might be best placed to make a decision if we can't agree. Assuming he's happy to get involved to this extent.