Reality check request

[firecat]

A steering committee for a weekly event polled the membership asking whether it should make a policy change about who can attend the event. This was the result of the poll:

No, I do not want to change the policy - 30%
Yes, I would like to change the policy - 41%
Yes, I would like to change the policy, but only for one meeting a month - 18%
Yes, I would like to change the policy, but retain the current policy once a month - 27%

These poll results were described as "The community was fairly evenly split about this idea" and the decision of the committee was "For the time being we will not be making changes."

These figures add up to more than 100%, so it's hard to gauge, but it seems to me that the membership is not in fact "fairly evenly split" at all. What I see is that at least 70% of the votes are in favor of changing the policy.

However, I'm strongly in favor of changing the policy, so I am biased. What do you think?

Comments

[eagle]

I'm very confused by the >100% total, which makes me think this was multiple choice and makes me wonder how many people didn't express an opinion. But even with some unknown and weird voting system beneath this result, I can't imagine a voting system in which 30% negative out of 116% total amounts to "evenly split."

If I were being very ungenerous, I would point out that having one "no" option and multiple "yes" options and then interpreting no single "yes" option having achieved straight majority as a "mixed result" that's equivalent to "no" is a very... common form of amateur voting shenanigans, and doesn't inspire confidence in the people interpreting the vote.

[jazzfish]

^This.

[firecat]

Thanks!

[firecat]

Thank you for your analysis!