User:MarkusSchulze/Wikimedia Board of Trustees elections, 2008

In June 2008, Wikimedia used the Schulze method for the election to its Board of Trustees: One vacant seat had to be filled. There were 15 candidates, about 26,000 eligible voters, and 3,019 valid ballots.

Stage 1
Each ballot contains a list of all candidates. Each voter ranks these candidates in order of preference. Each voter gives a '1' to his favorite candidate, a '2' to his second favorite candidate, a '3' to his third favorite candidate, etc..

Each voter may ...


 * ... give the same preference to more than one candidate. This indicates that this voter is indifferent between these candidates.


 * ... skip preferences. However, skipping preferences has no impact on the result of the elections, since only the order, in which the candidates are ranked, matters and not the absolute numbers of the preferences.


 * ... keep candidates unranked. When a voter doesn't rank all candidates, then this is interpreted as if this voter (1) strictly prefers all ranked to all unranked candidates and (2) is indifferent between all unranked candidates.

Stage 2
In total, 3019 valid ballots were cast. Each figure represents the number of voters who ranked the candidate at the left better than the candidate at the top. A figure in green represents a victory in that pairwise comparison by the candidate at the left. A figure in red represents a defeat in that pairwise comparison by the candidate at the left.

Stage 3
A "circular tie" is a situation where a majority prefers candidate A to candidate B, a majority prefers candidate B to candidate C, and a majority prefers candidate C to candidate A.

In 2008, there was a circular tie between the candidates Jussi-Ville Heiskanen (JH), Ryan Postlethwaite (RP), Steve Smith (SS), and Ray Saintonge (RS). JH beat RP. RP beat SS. SS beat RS. RS beat JH.

This circular tie had to be resolved with the Schulze method. This method is defined as follows:


 * d[A,B] is the number of voters who prefer candidate A to candidate B.


 * A path from candidate X to candidate Y of strength z is a sequence of candidates C(1),...,C(n) with the following properties:


 * C(1) is identical to X.
 * C(n) is identical to Y.
 * d[C(i),C(i+1)] > d[C(i+1),C(i)] for all i = 1,...,(n-1).
 * d[C(i),C(i+1)] &ge; z for all i = 1,...,(n-1).


 * p[A,B], the strength of the strongest path from candidate A to candidate B, is the maximum value such that there is a path of this strength from candidate A to candidate B.


 * If there is no path from candidate A to candidate B at all, then p[A,B] : = 0.


 * Candidate D is better than candidate E if and only if p[D,E] &gt; p[E,D].

The graph of pairwise defeats looks as follows:



The weakest links of the strongest paths are underlined.

As 841 = p[JH,RP] > p[RP,JH] = 745, JH is better than RP.

As 798 = p[JH,SS] > p[SS,JH] = 745, JH is better than SS.

As 797 = p[JH,RS] > p[RS,JH] = 745, JH is better than RS.

As 755 = p[RP,SS] > p[SS,RP] = 745, RP is better than SS.

As 797 = p[RP,RS] > p[RS,RP] = 745, RP is better than RS.

As 778 = p[SS,RS] > p[RS,SS] = 745, SS is better than RS.

Therefore, the Schulze ranking was:


 * Ting Chen
 * Alex Bakharev
 * Samuel Klein
 * Harel Cain
 * Ad Huikeshoven
 * Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
 * Ryan Postlethwaite
 * Steve Smith
 * Ray Saintonge
 * Dan Rosenthal
 * Craig Spurrier
 * Matthew Bisanz
 * Kurt M. Weber
 * Paul Williams
 * Gregory Kohs

As one vacant seat had to be filled, the winner was Ting Chen.

Weblinks

 * Elections to Wikimedia's Board of Trustees 2008: Introduction and rules
 * Elections to Wikimedia's Board of Trustees 2008: Results
 * Elections to Wikimedia's Board of Trustees 2008: Complete ballot data