Debian Project Leader Elections 2005

Time Line

Nomination period: February 7th 00:00:01 UTC, 2005 February 28th 00:00:00 UTC, 2005
Campaigning period: February 28th 00:00:01 UTC, 2005 March 21st 00:00:00 UTC, 2005
Voting period: March 21st, 00:00:01 UTC, 2005 April 11th, 00:00:00 UTC, 2005

Please note that the new term for the project leader shall start on April 17th, 2005.

Nominations

  1. Matthew Garrett [mjg59@debian.org] [platform]
  2. Andreas Schuldei [andreas@debian.org] [platform]
  3. Angus Lees [gus@debian.org] [platform]
  4. Anthony Towns [ajt@debian.org] [platform]
  5. Jonathan Walther [krooger@debian.org] [platform]
  6. Branden Robinson [branden@debian.org] [platform]

The ballot, when ready, can be received through email by emailing ballot@vote.debian.org with the subject leader2005.

Debate

The debates this year were orchestrated by Helen Faulkner and Martin Krafft. I would like to extend the thanks of the project for their stellar work in producing an exemplary debate, despite a record number of candidates participating this year. A transcript of the debate is available for review

The debate was held on March 16th, 06:00:00 UTC, 2005, on the IRC server irc.debian.org. There were two relevant channels, namely, #debian-dpl-debate, and #debian-dpl-discuss. The #debian-dpl-debate channel was moderated, but open to anybody who wished to view the proceedings, but only the candidates, the moderators, and those participating in the immediate discussion will be able to post messages. The #debian-dpl-discuss channel was unmoderated - the intention was for real-time, unmoderated discussion of the candidates' responses to the debate questions.

Raw logs from the channels, in addition to the transcript mentioned above, including the behind the scenes channels used to conduct the debate courtesy of the moderators:

Data and Statistics

This year, like always, some statistics shall be gathered about ballots received and acknowledgements sent periodically during the voting period. Additionally, the list of voters shall be recorded. Also, the tally sheet may also be viewed. Please remember that the project leader election has a secret ballot, so the tally sheet is produced with the hash of the alias of the voter rather than the name; the alias having been sent to the corresponding voter when the acknowledgement of the ballot was sent so that people may verify that their votes are correct.

Quorum

With 965 developers, we have: 

 Current Developer Count = 965
 Q ( sqrt(#devel) / 2 ) = 15.5322245670091
 K min(5, Q )           = 5
 Quorum  (3 x Q )       = 46.5966737010272

Option 1 Reached quorum: 112> 46.5966737010272
Option 2 Reached quorum: 384> 46.5966737010272
Option 3 Reached quorum: 376> 46.5966737010272
Option 4 Reached quorum: 390> 46.5966737010272
Option 5 Reached quorum: 261> 46.5966737010272
Option 6 Reached quorum: 346> 46.5966737010272

Majority Requirement

All candidates would need a simple majority to be eligible. 

Dropping Option 1 because of Majority.  0.332 (112/337) <= 1
Option 2 passes Majority.               5.120 (384/75)> 1
Option 3 passes Majority.               3.514 (376/107)> 1
Option 4 passes Majority.               3.861 (390/101)> 1
Option 5 passes Majority.               1.418 (261/184)> 1
Option 6 passes Majority.               2.883 (346/120)> 1

Outcome

The winner of the election is Branden Robinson

I would like to thank all the candidates for their service to the project, for standing for the post of project leader, and for offering the developers a strong and viable group of candidates.

Graphical rendering of the results

Total unique votes cast: 504, which is 52.22797% of all possible votes.

In the graph above, any pink colored nodes imply that the option did not pass majority, the Blue is the winner. The Octagon is used for the options that did not beat the default. In the following table, tally[row x][col y] represents the votes that option x received over option y. A more detailed explanation of the beat matrix may help in understanding the table. For understanding the Condorcet method, the Wikipedia entry is fairly informative.

The Beat Matrix
Option
  1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Option 1   18 33 18 52 39 112
Option 2 394   220 221 350 249 384
Option 3 420 248   245 352 244 376
Option 4 440 244 222   375 264 390
Option 5 314 60 95 80   99 261
Option 6 378 185 184 196 307   346
Option 7 337 75 107 101 184 120  


Looking at row 2, column 1, Matthew Garrett received 394 votes over Jonathan Walther
Looking at row 1, column 2, Jonathan Walther received 18 votes over Matthew Garrett.

Option 3 defeats Option 2 by ( 248 - 220) = 28 votes.
Option 4 defeats Option 2 by ( 244 - 221) = 23 votes.
Option 2 defeats Option 5 by ( 350 - 60) = 290 votes.
Option 2 defeats Option 6 by ( 249 - 185) = 64 votes.
Option 2 defeats Option 7 by ( 384 - 75) = 309 votes.
Option 3 defeats Option 4 by ( 245 - 222) = 23 votes.
Option 3 defeats Option 5 by ( 352 - 95) = 257 votes.
Option 3 defeats Option 6 by ( 244 - 184) = 60 votes.
Option 3 defeats Option 7 by ( 376 - 107) = 269 votes.
Option 4 defeats Option 5 by ( 375 - 80) = 295 votes.
Option 4 defeats Option 6 by ( 264 - 196) = 68 votes.
Option 4 defeats Option 7 by ( 390 - 101) = 289 votes.
Option 6 defeats Option 5 by ( 307 - 99) = 208 votes.
Option 5 defeats Option 7 by ( 261 - 184) = 77 votes.
Option 6 defeats Option 7 by ( 346 - 120) = 226 votes.

Debian uses the Condorcet method for project leader elections. Simplistically, plain Condorcet's method can be stated like so :
Consider all possible two-way races between candidates. The Condorcet winner, if there is one, is the one candidate who can beat each other candidate in a two-way race with that candidate. The problem is that in complex elections, there may well be a circular relations ship in which A beats B, B beats C, and C beats A. Most of the variations on Condorcet use various means of resolving the tie. See Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential Dropping for details. Debian's variation is spelled out in the the constitution, specifically, ยง A.6.