UM-ACM Election Plan and Speeches, May 2001.
It
looks as though everybody who wishes to stand for election
has now sent in their few words. I have included them all below
in alphabetical order on last name. We have five people standing
for four positions: very exciting!
In
fact, it is really important that we keep as many interested
people doing something as possible, and we want to make sure that
next year (when even more people will graduate and disappear) we
still have some people around who know something about the
organisation. Together with the fact that we really haven't had
any opportunity for you to get to know each other, I think it
would be a good idea if we have FIVE OFFICERS.
If
that does not meet with obejections, what we're doing now is
deciding who will have which position, but all five people who had an
interest will be involved and give us some continuity in the future.
Are there any objections?
Anyway, the five people standing are:
Tamara Almeyda
Samuel Covert
Michael Drumheller
Zsolt Kira
Andrew Tappert
(details below)
The positions to be elected are:
President
Vice-President
Treasurer
Secretary
Fifth Wheel (or whatever we call it, if you allow it)
Nobody
has objected to the idea of a kind-of free-for-all election,
where the person with the most votes gets their most desired position,
and so on down the list, so that is probably what we should do. We
could spend hours discussing the best possible voting scheme, but
we haven't got hours available. So I have made a plan, and if nobody
objects, it is what we'll do.
The Voting Plan:
Everybody
arranges the five candidates in order of preference.
The person they put at the top of their list gets 16 votes, their second
choice gets 8 votes, third gets 4 votes, fourth gets 2 votes, and their
last choice gets 1 vote. If you hate a candidate, just don't put them
in your list, and you are giving them zero votes. Of course you are
allowed (and probably expected) to vote for yourself.
When
all the votes are counted, the candidates are arranged in order,
the one with the most votes first. We then run down the list in order,
each candidate gets the office they most wanted out of those offices
not yet taken.
So,
the winner gets the position they want. Whoever comes second
gets the office they wanted unless the winner already took it, in which
case they get their second choice of office. And so on, down to the end
of the list.
If
anybody does not state a list of preferences for offices, it will
be assumed that they most want to be president, and least want to be fifth
wheel, with the five offices in the order I listed them above.
On
Monday, I will send a ballot email to everyone individually. Each of
you reply to that email just listing the candidates in your preferred order.
Make sure your reply is sent BY early Wednesday, votes will be counted
at approximately mid-day on Wednesday.
To
protected against the very unlikely event of florida-style vote
fraud, each individual ballot email that I send out will include a secret
two word phrase. Include that two word phrase in your reply.
I
will keep a list of all the two word phrases sent out, but I will not
keep any record of who was sent which phrase. That way I can make sure
that each person only gets one vote, and I can also make the voting
secret: When each reply is received, I will append it (without record of
sender) to a single large file of responses.
I
think that's everything. Sorry this is such a long message, but the
virtual impossibility of meeting in person for elections (or any other
purpose really) means that everything has to be spelled out in detail.
Now for the candidates' "speeches". I am including them exactly as
received, ordered on surname. I have no preferred candidates, and it is
none of my business anyway, so I'm not going to try to push anyone. I
am not adding any comments about anyone, although there are plenty that
I would add if it were appropriate: I'm very pleased with all five
candidates, and don't think you can go wrong whomsoever you choose.
No candidate gives me that dreadful sinking feeling that I have had
a few times in past years! I said that I'd remove any particular
obscenities from speeches, but nothing strikes me as obscene enough
to merit removal, and censorship is one of my least favourite
aspects of modern society, so I left them all alone. If I had thought
a bit longer, I would never have brought up the subject in the first
place. Also, I don't get a vote. It is just you student members.
- Tamara Almeyda
- My name is Tamara (Tammy) Almeyda and I am going to be a sophomore next year
majoring in IT. I would like to be either the secretary or treasurer because
I enjoy these positions and I have quite a bit experience in them.
Throughout high school I served in these offices for several clubs and I
came to be quite good at taking notes and minutes and keeping all of the
club matters and finances in order. If elected that's just what I'll do, and
if not I'd still enjoy being an active member of the club.
- Samuel Covert
- My name is Samuel W Covert, I am a Cuban American born
and raised in Miami. I would be a worthy candidate
for the ACM elections, as I have been on the boards of
several scholastic groups throughout high school. I
have several great ideas for what we can accomplish as
a group, and am willing to continue learning and
working with others on interesting and dynamic
computer programming projects, as computer programming
is one of my passions.
- Michael Drumheller
-
I feel that we should use what we have, and not just among ourselves. I
really like the idea of the high school contests, and we could even set up
something beyond that, opening it to the community in general, for people to
be able to form teams, etc. We could sort them out into divisions and go
from there. Also, perhaps we could set up some sort of "unofficial campus
tech support" thing for the many students who have issues with their
computers, whether it be connecting to the network, or what have you. A
third thing that would be fun to do would be to give ourselves a hardware
workout as well, and get into some robotics/AI stuff. True, we're a little
pack of computer geeks, but this is stuff we could definately pull off.
- Zsolt Kira
- I'm Zsolt Kira. I'm about to become a senior with a dual major
in computer engineering and computer science. If elected I'd like to
help in setting up the high school competitions, because that's the idea
I like best. I'm also pretty interested in computer graphics, having
taken a course this semester in it, so the game writing idea appeals to
me as well (a 3D game, not a wimpy text-based one).
- Andrew Tappert
- I've been involved with UM ACM for a couple years now. I went to the
1999 and 2000 ACM regional programming contests. The first we did well
at, placing 4th out of 73. I was impressed by that result, since I had
only been with the group a short time then, I'd never done a
programming contest before, and hadn't practiced much for that one. It
gave be hope for even better results the next year. But such was not to
be. Last fall we really fucked up (sorry Dr. Murrell, but you said you'd
act as an obscenity filter). After practicing far more for the 2000
contest than we had for the one the year before, we went and turned in a
pathetic middle-of-the-pack performance on the day when it counted. That
wasn't fun. If we're going to keep doing these contests, we've got to do
better than that. I'm really not an overly competitive kind of guy, but I
can't stand going to a programming contest and not kicking ass. So that
would be my priority as an elected official of the ACM.
-
Some other things: I was elected Secretary and Treasurer a couple years
ago (we had a dearth of candidates). I was acting Vice President after
our old one graduated last May. Not that I did much, since the ACM has
been rather disorganized lately. With the President not a student at UM
anymore and me taking the semester off, there weren't any elected
officials around this semester. (I've been in Virgina this semester
working at the CIA. I'll be back late in the summer for the fall
semester.) I haven't totally abandoned my post: I've been in touch with
Dr. Murrell and ACM member Zsolt Kira, constantly nagging them to have ACM
meetings, do student organization paperwork, etc.
-
I set up a mailing list for the ACM today so we can communicate with each
other a bit better. The ACM tends to meet rather irregularly, so I think
a mailing list is a long overdue avenue of communication. Please
subscribe to it by sending mail with the subject "subscribe um-acm" to
minimalist@rabbit.eng.miami.edu. (mimimalist is the name of the mailing
list management software.) Our official acm email address is
acm@rabbit.eng.miami.edu. I occaisonally get email from the national
organization sent there regarding scholarship contests, news from other
college chapters, etc. I'll be sending all that out to the mailing list
in the future. In the mean time, I can think of a few good topics for
discussion on the mailing list, once you all sign up: what are the most
interesting programming classes at UM? (are there any?), and what
programming-related summer or part-time employment have people
had? (anything rewarding, intellectually or otherwise?). Look forward to
talking with you all on there...
The End.