Mark Ranft wrote:
> As a general rule, I don't participate in email lists unless it is
> important.  I have purposely stayed out of the election discussion as I was
> unsure of how to express my disinterest in the result.  But now as I look at
> the election tallies, I have to wonder... 
>
> What was this published for?  How important is this to anyone?  
>
> I suppose if we were a bunch of high schools students we would now know who
> was most popular.  But as adults, who cares?
>
> Mark Ranft
Hi Mark,

Before I reply to your question, please let me make it clear that this 
is not an official reply from the Board of Directors of OpenMPE.  It is 
simply my personal observations of humanity in general and of the 
postings on the OpenMPE mail list in particular.

The first observation is that what concerns one person greatly may be of 
little import to another.  As an example of this, there was recently an 
athletic contest of some sort involving a team local to me.  Although I 
would have been perfectly happy with a news report stating "the 
Supersonics lost" with no other details, I doubt that such a report 
would have been well received by many of the people living in this area, 
especially a fellow named Paul Allen.  Whether the fans were "happy" 
with the results reported in far greater detail is debatable, but such 
detail was expected and would have been demanded.

The second observation was that when the results of the OpenMPE election 
were announced tersely and succinctly, it was soon evident that at least 
some members of the community expected more details.  As you have seen, 
the BoD responded to those expectations by releasing the tally of votes 
by candidate.  Although the methodology of the election was, in my 
opinion at least, eminently fair and as reliable as we could make it, I 
have the hope that releasing the tally will serve to answer any 
questions that our members might have had about the process.

OpenMPE is in some small way a reflection of the larger society around 
it.  Currently the BoD, both incoming and outgoing, is composed of U.S. 
citizens, save our lone Canadian.  Both countries have open elections 
where the tally is presented as a matter of course at the close of the 
election, which sets a level of expectation.  I am not trained in the 
discipline of the social scientist so I cannot say with exactitude why 
human beings desire open elections, but my cynical opinion is that 
perhaps we are becoming collectively feed up with being lied to by so 
called "figures of authority".  My personal opinion is that perhaps 
given the current events in the would it could have been predicted that 
we would be held to the usual standards for elections in North America.

In any case, I am gratified that the election was important enough to 
the community that many of our members voted and cared enough to follow 
the election.  At least we can tell HP that those few of us on the Board 
do indeed represent a constituency which , although unseen, is vitally 
interested in what OpenMPE and HP can accomplish together.

My true opinion,
Alan Tibbetts