I wonder why no one pmd me. I would have voted for them had they thought enough of me to send a pm... ah the differences of opinions - its what makes the world go round.

I only speak for myself here: I consider sending PM's for TB Election campaining SPAM ! I dont know in advance if the member is interested in recieving this message and I would not dare bothering hundreds or thousands of FT members with PM.

For this reason and the purpose of information we have the open Forum of the Candidates Debates.

We get enough SPAM everyday in our emails and mailboxes !

This is a sensible topic, some FTers & candidates might disagree with me but I value the time and privacy of my fellow FT members and dont think sending them eventually unwanted messages contributes to this philosophy.

Cheers,
Seb.

^^ I would have welcomed it, but thats just me.

Did you read the candidates statements in the election forum? Hopefully that offered you some guidance on who to vote for. Some candidates invested a lot of time answering questions there, and I read every thread.

I did not mention my opinion regarding the voting button in my post above.

Personally I dont think it disadvantages a member if the voting designator appears under his name. If it would say "I did not vote" then it would be more of a concern because it sounds really bad and would come close to bad mouthing. However, I think every Flyertalker can be proud of participating in the voting process, as much as the candidates are proud of running !

I'm not a computer geek thats why I cant say in how far it is technically possible to implement a "choice" option for the designator. Maybe this is something to figure out for the following elections.

The symbol is a good thing to spread the word about the elections. Members who did not read the sticky or the respective forums ask what the little thing under the name means and it might actually encourage them in participating.

Just my 2 cents !

Plus reading the threads will allow you to rewad between the lines of tom911's post.

It would be great if the votes correspond with the quality of the responses (and the voters' reaction to them) rather than solely on the quantity of PMs.

Independent, inquiring and inspirational representatives wanted!

Strangely, I haven't received any PMs since I put up my sig

That worked then

Love it

If we don't see an I voted icon by your name soon, you can bet your ar$e that you'll get PM's.

When I give blood, they give me the little sticker than I can choose to wear or not.

Since no one asked me whether or not I wanted the "I voted" icon, I request that it be removed.

Yes, the word �both� is redundant. I had tentatively found only three for whom I felt positive. But I dropped one and added one. I might still find a fourth based on a future post � or maybe drop another. To me four is only a maximum.

I believe the icon serves its stated purpose. I don’t really see an issue here, but I suppose there may be a way for it to be toggled off in the user CP if that feature of the board software is turned on.

As others have noted, U-S election law is not a factor here, but nevertheless I feel compelled to respond.

U-S elections are governed by the states. However, as far as I know this is the same nationwide:

Whether you voted is a matter of public record.

How you voted is not.

So the ballot itself is "secret", but whether you chose to cast the ballot is not a secret. Generally it requires some digging through public records to determine whether someone has voted, but once in a while you'll see a news article about some flag-waving candidate for office who upon further inspection has been discovered to have never actually bothered to cast a ballot.

Since there doesn't seem to be any mechanism for FTer's to see whether another member has voted in past elections, a member's non-participation in the current election could likely not be used against them should they decide to run for TalkBoard in the future.

For the record not that it really matters in the this conversation~

In the US:

How you vote is PRIVATE information

Where and if you vote is PUBLIC information but not PUBLICIZED information.

The issue here seems to be whether people want the information to be PUBLICIZED.

Good point!
I can understand that some prefer to not have this info publicised.
It would be an indicator for some TB candidates to potentially screen out people who have voted (and focus attention to others) or to spam electioneering information to people without the badge.

However I know that FT candidates would not stoop to such electioneering stunts.

[Isn't it funny that FT is not just a group of status-obsessed collectors; some like to keep their status private]