Since there is confusion, perhaps I can shed some light on why the "none of the above" group voted the way that they did, though obviously these weren't everyone's reasons.
It is not necessarily the belief that we would hold off "until his is reinstated", but rather that we want his appeal to be resolved before we pick a DST. Personally, I actually feel more comfortable with the idea of some clearly temporary person (like one of Jon's ARSTs) managing things until the appeal is decided one way or the other, and then having an election that involves all applying members of the domain. In such an election I would not want Sameer or Brian prevented just because many in the domain want to wait. Several of you seem unable to conceive of why I (or others) would rather have a stranger appointed rather than electing someone who knows us, so I'll see if I can put it into words. To me, there is a difference between holding an election so that the temporary guy can go back to his other duties and ejecting an elected officer in order to have another election. I want this to *feel* like a temporary state, and I want an election to happen when the appeal is over *regardless* of the outcome, without someone just staying in office for the remainder of the term because they were elected the temporary DST.
For many, I think that voting for "none of the above" was also a form of protest for what we feel are injustices. Partially for the decision itself, though that is being handled by an appeal, but also for the manner in which it was done. It was done suddenly, thrusting us into an unstable state despite policy indicating that he should have had time to appeal. It was not a matter of thinking that this is actually better for us, but of accepting a little hardship to show conviction. To show that we aren't just bitching and griping because we like to hear ourselves talk, but because we feel something was actually done wrong. People will always complain about something and often loudly, but that is easy to accept as just not being able to satisfy everyone. It is much less common for the majority (even a slim majority) of a domain to vote for added hardship for themselves in order to make the point.
Hopefully that has shed a little light on our point of view.
Charlie
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