UA Election Commission: Dates and Deadlines

Voting Procedures
How Preferential Voting Works

Important points about the election:

Voting is confidential. The computer makes sure that no one votes twice, but doesn't actually let us know who has and who has not voted. For more technical information email us .

Voting is preferential BUT YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED TO LIST MORE THAN ONE CANDIDATE. You do not have to rank all the candidates. You may, if you like, rank n-1. Or you can just choose one. A description is below. (The preferential voting is just like the one Cambridge uses)

If a voter has problems voting electronically, he/she should EMAIL UA-ELECT@MIT.EDU. The system works well, but occassionally some voters have problems voting. If this happens to you or someone you know, and if you email us, we may be able to find a solution.

For anyone who does not wish to vote online, there will be paper voting in lobby 7 on Friday.

For paper balloting (March 9, 2001):

The booth in Lobby 7 will be open on Friday ONLY. The voting stataion will be open from 9am until 7pm. A paper copy of each candidates platform statement and their picture (photcopies) will be at the voting station. Paper votes will be entered by the Commission into the computer and tallied in the same way as the electronic votes.

Preferential voting works like this :

You must pick a first choice. After that, you *may* rank as many others as you would like, 1 through N-1.

When the votes are tallied, the computer compiles all the first choice votes. It then eliminates the candidate with the least number of votes, say Candidate Goofy. The computer then looks at each of the ballots that had Goofy ranked first, counts up all the votes for second place, and then adds those to the first place ranking for those people. This process continues until only two candidates are left.

Therefore, preferential voting only matters if the person you place first comes out last in any round - then your vote switches to a vote for your second place choice, and so on. Any vote for a candidate, no matter what rank, is still a vote for him or her, and can only help his/her chances of winning. if you only want to see your first choice in office, you should not rank second or third.

Example

First round :

Donald Duck 113 votes
Minnie Mouse 106 votes
Mickey Mouse 57 votes
Goofy 25 votes (2nd ranking : 15 votes Minnie, 6 votes Donald, 1 vote Mickey, 3 votes no preference)

Second round :

Donald 119 votes
Minnie 121 votes
Mickey 58 votes (2nd ranking : 22 votes Minnie, 19 votes Donald, 17 votes no preference)

Third round :

Donald 138 votes
Minnie 143 votes

Minnie wins.

[Return to the Election Commission Homepage]