I hate voting

Speaking as a chronically indecisive person, I hate voting!

Mostly I hate it when there are a lot of candidates I respect, and who I respect for widely differing reasons.  It’s easier when they’re a bunch of corrupt politican scumbags, and you have a clear least bad candidate or “none of the above”.  But when you want to move every candidate higher up the ballot, it’s painful.

Voting has just closed in the ASF‘s annual election of a board of directors, and new member elections.  The most difficult part was the ballot for the nine places on the board: with more impressive candidates than the nine available places, how do I pick criteria for ranking them?

• The overall good of the ASF?  Well, who defines that?  Boils down to a mixture of their views, commitment, competence, etc.
• Ideas and visions.  It’s not the board’s role to take on new projects; rather they support the members!  But they are overseeing rapid growth, in a pioneering environment.  That will call for both leadership and managerial competence.
• Alignment with my own views.  Do they represent me?  Two or three candidates have expressed views I firmly disagree with, but I still respect them.  A lot.
• Affiliation.  I’d prefer not to see the board too much dominated by employees of any one company.  That’s a matter of perception: there’s no suggestion they’d let it become a conflict of interest affecting their actions as Apache directors.  This year that is an issue.  But the company in question employs lots of people I don’t want to vote against!
• Appearances.  Apart from the affiliation issue, does it gain or lose us anything to have our biggest names and/or more controversial people on the board?
• What do I feel like on the day?  To an indecisive person, this is a shamefully important criterion.

One thing seems certain: whoever the nine elected board members are, they’re nine good people who will deserve and get my support.