#1053 — analysis posted 2026-08-02¶
Posted: Equal-Vote/bettervoting#1053 comment
The substantive abstention analysis, placed on #1053 rather than #884 because #884 is closed — comments there sit outside maintainers' default views. #1053 is open, is the ticket @ArendPeter relabelled "Discussion", and is where the disagreement actually lives.
Framing choices, deliberate¶
- Steelman first. Opens by conceding the part of #884 that's right — the roll-off case where naive bucketing makes "Equal Support" the tallest bar is a real problem, and any change must keep it solved. Includes an explicit "I don't think I appreciated that when I pushed back in 2025." On a volunteer project, arriving with new evidence lands better than arriving with the same opinion louder.
- Label vs count. The central reframe: #884 answered a labelling question; the implementation answered a counting question by deleting the ballot. The label can be entirely right and the deletion still cause the six downstream tickets.
- Their own materials, verified first-hand before quoting. The hand-count protocol's three piles and
equal_preference's "counted exactly as the voter intended" were fetched and read directly, not taken from a summary — quoting an organisation's own published rules back at them inaccurately would be worse than not citing them.starpycited as neutral cross-reference, not as a gotcha. - The ask is narrow. Not "reverse #884". Keep the label, stop the deletion, fix the receipt.
- Uncertainty stated. Closes by flagging that the
NaNrendering is traced through code, not observed in a browser.
What it carries¶
- The current rule changes winners today → #1470, filed separately so it can't be blocked by this discussion
- Winner-invariance for single-winner and Bloc STAR, from a 55,127-election falsification attempt
- The quorum hazard — invariance doesn't make it cosmetic
- Two independent edits, not one — the structural reason the thread stalled
- Sequencing behind #1035 and #1471, both filed standalone
- Retroactivity, and the
create_dategate the codebase already documents
Full upstream set from this work¶
| Ticket | Type | State |
|---|---|---|
| #1470 | new bug — write-in discards ballots, changes winners | open, live repro 43jp39 |
| #1471 | new bug — chart split denominator | open |
| #1035 | root cause + prerequisite framing | comment |
| #1053 | the analysis | comment |
| #1407 | link fix | comment |
| #884 | link fix (closed issue, low visibility) | comment |
Deliberately not done: no request to reopen #884. That's the move that reads as relitigating, and nothing needs it — (a) is a code change, and the labelling decision can stand.