[Elections] A concrete proposal for registering voters and conducting the elections

[Peter Crowther]

This is derived from the discussion on #Squeak (see log at
http://meme.b9.com/~1c0c02fabeddba6877abc034~/cview.html?channel=squeak&
date=060111 with start time 21:00).

Goals:

1) Use pre-built systems where possible to minimise development time.

2) Allow several communities to register their interest in the upcoming
board elections.

3) Use a recognised voting system with known properties rather than an
ad-hoc one.

Assumptions:

a) Other communities' list admins will exclude any emails they consider
unsuitable before submitting lists.

b) Nominations close at some time N, before time T (see below).

Proposed method:

i) Voters in the Squeak community must register on SqP and have been
ranked as Apprentice or higher by T - 48 hours, where T is the start of
voting.  [Alternative: A rank of 'voter' is created between Observer and
Apprentice, and this or higher must be achieved.]

ii) After T - 48 hours, the list of apprentices and higher ranks
[option: voter and higher] is retrieved from SqP and matched against
email addresses.

iii) The stakeholder organisations listed at
http://swiki.krampe.se/castaways/9 are contacted and asked to pass over
email addresses of any voters they wish to include in the election.
Actually, we'll contact them earlier, but ideally we want a list as near
to T - 48 hours as possible.

iv) The list of voters V is constructed.  This is exactly the union of
the SqP list and all the stakeholder lists.

v) After time N, the list of candidates C is constructed.  Candidates
who are willing to stand and meet the criteria described at
http://people.squeakfoundation.org/article/53.html make the list.

v) Before time T, a private election is created at CIVS
(http://www.cs.cornell.edu/andru/civs.html) using Condorcet voting with
the CIVS Ranked Pairs completion rule [alternative: MAM completion
rule].  The list of candidates used is C; the list of voters used is V.

vi) At time T, a message is sent to squeak-dev and all stakeholder lists
stating that voting is open, giving the URL and the duration D for which
the vote is open (1 week). [Alternative: another duration.]

vii) At time T + D, the vote is closed, the result is declared and
feedback is solicited from the community on the process.  Note that T +
D must be before 17th Feb in order to meet the present requirements for
leaders stepping down.

viii) At some time greater than T + D, Peter (at least) pours himself a
large drink and celebrates that this particular hurdle has been cleared.

ix) Continuously after T + D, the elections team monitors feedback and
tries to improve the process.

Comments?

		- Peter