Horizontal cascades and vertical geo-locals

[Michael Allan]

Just an update: I have an intitial cut of the new pollspace browser:

  http://t.zelea.com:8080/voff/w/Pollspace/?p=ward-20-councillor

The only part that's more-or-less finished is the browser proper.  So
you can navigate around.  Here are some possible problems:

  * It's slow.  (Will optimize it later.)

  * After moving far enough upstream (left) the horizontal scroll bar
    appears.  At that point, navigating further upstream or back
    downstream can be disorienting, because the view snaps too quickly
    to the left or right.  (Will smooth it out eventually, maybe by
    auto-scrolling with JavaScript.)

  * The numbers need to be better explained. (Will maybe add a
    footnote or something.)

        R - H + 1 = C  (if casting)

      or,

        R - H + 0 = C = 0  (if not casting)

    Only R (received in) matters when looking at a candidate, and only
    C (cast/carried out) matters when looking at the support given by
    a voter/delegate.  H (held) is the difference between inflow and
    outflow, and it's only important when there's a voting loop.

I don't think any of the above will prevent us from starting alpha
trials.  Next I'll add voting controls.  They'll be similar to the
controls at the top of this old page:

  http://t.zelea.com:8080/voff/w/Vote/?p=ward-20-councillor

But the candidate field will stuff itself with whomever you navigate
to in the browser.  So you'll just navigate around, and then press
Vote.  There'll also be an Unvote button to withdraw a vote; and a Go
button to navigate to a candidate without necessarily voting for her.

The cascade will correct itself for each vote shift.  But only for
your own vote shifts, not for anyone else's.  (All vote shifts will be
taken into consideration at the next full count.)

It should take 3-4 days to finish.

(PS. Thomas, issueless voting still interests me, too.  I have some
 new thoughts - will reply soon.)

- Mike