Interview you at UBC this week for video on VFM? [#ubcvotes]

What do you think of VFM at UBC? We're shooting some videos for our website votermedia.org. How about sharing your views with the world?

We plan to get out to UBC to interview people this week. Possible days/times are tomorrow (Tuesday) evening from 6:30 pm on, or this Friday from 6:30 pm on, or Saturday any time.

Outside of that, most weekday evenings or weekends are possible if you can drop by my place in Coal Harbour (near Burrard skytrain station).

Let me know by email to mark[at]votermedia.org -- thanks!

BTW voting on blogs continues at votermedia.org/communities/82-ubc-ams

Analyzing 1-time vs Continuous VFM results

Here are two spreadsheets showing some analyses of the results of UBC's two voter funded media competitions that we ran in January 2010:

• Awards comparison -- Continuous vs 1-time VFM
• Correlating media votes with President votes

Sorry I haven't taken the time to explain them in detail. Feel free to ask questions in your comments, or email them to me -- mark[at]votermedia.org.

VFM horserace page shows history of funding shares [#ubcvotes]

You can now see the history of all funded media for one community on a "horserace" page -- enjoy!

E.g. votermedia.org/horserace/82-ubc-ams

UBC VFM Awards [#ubcvotes]

This morning we calculated the last of 10 daily awards ($1500 total; info here) in the current UBC voter funded media competition. Winners are:

AMS Confidential -- $567
UBC Insiders -- $559.50
The UBC Spectator -- $216
The Radical Beer Tribune -- $157.50

Congratulations! Thank you to all participants -- media, voters, elections administrators, electoral candidates, and especially to the Arts Undergrad Society for sponsoring this competition. AUS will be paying the awards, so I guess the contact is arts.ubc.elections[at]gmail.com.

Voting continues on the VFM ballot. Hopefully awards will be funded again some time. You can see the daily history of shares by clicking on any share% number.


[Twitter #ubcvotes]

VFM for B.C. Municipal Elections

Today I submitted this comment letter to the British Columbia Local Government Elections Task Force, advocating voter funded media for municipal elections. The task force will recommend legislation to improve local government electoral processes. (Pdf file available at votermedia.org/publications.)

VoterMedia.org

Media for voters, funded by voters

March 19, 2010

Local Government Elections Task Force

c/o Ministry of Community and Rural Development

PO Box 9839 Stn Prov Govt

Victoria, B.C. V8W 9T1

Submitted by email to localelectionstaskforce@gov.bc.ca

Re: Public financing for local government election campaigns

Dear Task Force members:

UBC elections hack update

The team investigating the voter fraud in January's UBC AMS elections gave another report at last night's AMS Council meeting. Details: UBC Insiders has posted an informative summary, and The Ubyssey has published an article.

UBC VFM blitz!

The UBC Arts Undergraduate Society Elections Committee has generously decided to sponsor voter funded media during the upcoming constituency elections. They will award a total of $1500, at a rate of $150 per day for 10 days from Friday March 12 through Sunday March 21.

This is designed to benefit all the UBC constituency elections happening during that period, including Arts, Science, Engineering and Human Kinetics. Thank you AUS! See the multi-election info website ubcvotes.ca

Media voting will be on the same Continuous VFM ballot we have been using for the UBC AMS: votermedia.org/communities/82-ubc-ams with same media continuing, unless any let me know they want to drop out.

NOTE: Only votes cast after noon tomorrow (Thursday March 11) will count! So the rankings will start afresh on the daily tally early Friday morning. (I'll probably trigger an interim tally Thursday afternoon so everyone can see how it's going.) This creates a big incentive for the media to get your readers voting ASAP, ideally by Thursday night.

It's also a great opportunity for new media to enter the fray. Please follow the entry instructions at votermedia.org/ubc2010. For fastest upload, email entry to me (mark[at]votermedia.org). If you emailed an entry to Taylor Lukacin that's OK too -- she's forwarding them to me.

There's no entry fee. Usual CVFM terms apply: votermedia.org/terms

Our plan is for the AUS to pay the awards directly to media winners. We at VoterMedia.org will just be managing the ballot, tallying votes, calculating and displaying the awards on a best efforts basis, with no money paid to, from or via us.

Have fun!