[Elections] Welcome New Elections Leader - Time to organize

[Ken Causey]

On Wed, 2008-01-30 at 20:55 -0500, Ron Teitelbaum wrote:
> Hi Göran and the Elections Team,

Welcome Göran!

> Well I do hope that the resounding silence doesn’t put you off any.  A big
> welcome Göran from me as our new leader!  And welcome everyone to a new
> squeak election.  We had a very difficult time last year getting anyone to
> discuss anything about the election.  I have to say I did expect more
> reaction to the change.

I can't say it surprises me that this is rather a thankless job.  It's
one of those things where if it all goes smoothly, nobody really cares.
So I suggest that you be happy with the comparative silence and simply
listen to the small amount of criticism received, which it seems like
you are doing.

> I suppose it is time to come up with a schedule.  Last year we decided to
> have a nomination period, a campaigning period and then a voting period.  We
> have been asked to extend the voting period of 3 days because some people
> didn't check their email before voting closed.

If you don't mind, please remind me of the actual schedule.  I certainly
have no problem with extending the voting period.

> Also we had a very difficult time getting people to step up and nominate
> themselves for the board.  The period between nominations and voting was
> almost completely silent except for my attempt to get candidates to answer
> questions; I would consider that effort to not be worth the time.  Some
> never answered any questions.  And very few questions were submitted by the
> community.  
> 
> So I guess my suggestion would be a longer nomination period and voting
> period and a shorter campaigning period.  But overall it would be nice if we
> could still wrap it all up in just over a month.

I also have no problems with these ideas.  I suggest frankly that, while
the elections team itself probably needs to have a schedule it follows,
that you not try to enforce on the community only as much of the
schedule as is necessary.

1.  Early on the community needs to be reminded to get setup for the
minimal voting requirements: SqP account, email address valid,
certified.  And that this should be repeated in all communications
related to voting.

2.  If the nominees are expected to participate, as a group, in any
events prior to voting (such as a questionaire, or whatever) then they
should be notified of some sort of deadline for nominations prior to
these events but as late as possible.  Similarly I see no reason not to
request nominations from the beginning and in every communication up to
the point that nominations need to stop, if any.

3.  Obviously then there is the voting period itself which clearly must
have a hard starting and stopping point.  Again I suggest that the
information about this be communicated as soon as possible (so that
anyone who gets email rarely has little excuse about not being warned)
and as often as possible until the voting period has ended.

> What do you think?
>
> Ron Teitelbaum
> Squeak Elections Team Member 

Ken
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