[atlarge-discuss] Le mot juste Re: [atlarge-discuss] polling closed. resultsnow visible

[espresso@e-scape.net]

At 01:03 +0100 2003/02/09, J-F C. (Jefsey)  Morfin wrote:
>Gee! is there not a word in English to make a difference between a
>vote for
>a decision and a vote to give an information?

Indeed there is! The former is a "vote" or "referendum"; the
latter is just "a poll", "a survey" or just "polling".

This is why "Ms. Puritanically Left-of-Centre" keeps emphasizing
that any official voting to be done *must* be conducted with
due process, after officially notifying every single registered
member by e-mail well in advance of the date(s) for casting
their votes and exactly what they are to be voting on.

Nice as it is to have some polling results to guide our next
steps, this was NOT in any way an official process because:
- only part of the membership received notice of the vote
- only part of the membership received passwords so as to
  participate
- it was assumed (as some of us seem to do much of the time)
  that anyone who does not check this list or the Web site
  every couple of days does not deserve to participate
- the voting process was not itself agreed upon by either
  the Panel or a significant number of the members.

I won't bore you by repeating what I've said before about
the proper conduct of elections and referenda but if we are
to be holding elections for new Panel-members and a referendum
on a mission and its implementation, those things *must* be
done according to an agreed-upon procedure and allow adequate
time for members to think before casting their ballots.

Polling, on the other hand, is a method of determining what
people think at a particular moment in time, based on getting
responses from a small but statistically-significant number
of respondents selected at random. Polls which rely on
self-selection of respondents are statistically suspect, so
ours is more like asking for a show of hands at a physical
meeting -- not everyone is there but it's assumed that the
people who showed up at the meeting are indicative of what
the members are thinking.

The assumptions made on the basis of informal polling are
subsequently tested when a real election or referendum is
held.

HTH,

Judyth

(still maintaining that democracy is not a left-wing,
anti-American conspiracy since we learned it from Tom
Paine, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ben Franklin et al.
who wrote before there even was a "left")

##########################################################
Judyth Mermelstein     "cogito ergo lego ergo cogito..."
Montreal, QC           <espresso@e-scape.net>
##########################################################
"A word to the wise is sufficient. For others, use more."
"Un mot suffit aux sages; pour les autres, il en faut plus."
##########################################################



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