[council] Elections - Open Issues

[Amadeu Abril i Abril <Amadeu@nominalia.com>]

Hi all,

As we are approaching the dealine for commenting the elections
proposal, I would like lsiting the remaining open issuses (IMHO).

A) How many votes in the firt round?

My proposal for having three votes in the first round has been
supported by Raul and Dennis. I think it is importnat for the reason I
gave in the first mail: with only one vote strong regional and
consituency loyalties are likely to appear, and good candidates with
"socndary" support widely expressed among consituencies would be
eliminated form that momnet of. 

With three votes everybody will be aware of the relative support to
most candidates. And we can eliminate once and for all the nominees
with no or marginal support (say xero to two votes).

Does anybody disagree?

B) Role of the multiple vote round.

In my view, achiving GD and conevntion-style together mneans that we
have to select the Directors one by one. In this scenario (supported
by Patricio and Dennis) having multiple votes in all rounds makes no
sense, as no clear majority rules could be aplied. Many nominees could
achive the "simple majority" /19 votes or more) at any given round,
unnecessarily complicating the process.

This is why no director should be elected thru the first, multiple
vote round. Disagreements?

C) Real elctions rond with one vote per member.

For the reasons just explained above, all three "rounds" in order to
elect the three directors (probably each one consisitn of multiple
voteing rounds) should be follwing the "one vote per member" rule.

D) Nominees eliminated.

After the inital round, with three votes per NC member, all candidates
with no or ultramarginal support are eliminated "for all successive rounds".

This imply indeed the nominees with zero votes. But I suggest that
those with only one or two votes be also eliminated. More than that
would eliminate cnadidats with some chances, perhaps.

Does everybody agree that a candidate with no support or ultramarginal
support be eliminated for the three electoral seats= is "less than
two" votes out of the 57 total plausible( ie, no more htan two NC
members using one of his/her three votes for a fiven nominee).

E) GD and first round

It very unlikely that after the first, multiple vote round, there are
not at lest one candidate form at least three regions. The NC
composition , nad the three votes per member, nearly guarantess the contrary.

I feel very strongly that candidates with no support should no be
elected just because of the GD rule. This is a perversion of GD, not
abding to it. 


In clear: if after the first round only nominees form, say, North and
Latin America gets at least two votes, but none of the Euroepan, AOP
or African candidates gets such minimal support, we go on with the
election of the first and then the second candidate, but NOt to the
third, as there would NOT be any suitable candidate., 

We just fill two seats, and accaept the shame of being forced to a new
call for nominations and election for the third deat (whcih will not
be in place for LA, I know). But this is still more sound that
electing someone without any real support, even minimal.

[I know that this is very, ery unlikely to happen, but we are obliged
to have a decision beforehand, just in case]

Disagreements?

F) Telecon with nominees

I think that it is a good idea to have a telconf with NC and nominees
together. This shuld be done after the inital vote(the one with three
votes cast). 

If this is the cae, the telconf could not be scheduled prior to
Tuesday. Then the elction would run until Wednesday. Second seat on
Thursday and third seat on Friday. A tight schedule.

If there is no telconf with nominees, first director could be elcted
between Monday and Tueday, second during Wednesday and Thursday and
third during Friday (be aware that each election eliminates all the
candidates form the same region as the elected director, so the third
round would be the simplest, and fasteest).

Do you thin kthat we must have such teleconf, or that is is a bad idea
given the tight schedule?

G) How we met.

I believe that it is necessary that we hold a telconf at the beginning
of the electorl process. The best place is just after the "polling"
round (the one with three votes, where no one is elected and only
nominees with marginal support are eliminated). But before the "real
start", when we start sending the ballots with one vote in order to
select the first director.

This means that Monday afternoon (CET)  would be the best time. Except
in the case we want a telcon with nomineew, where perhaps we should
allow them a further 24 hours in order to be avaialbe for the telecon).

In any case, this initial telconf should help clearing all the
possible remaining doubts about the process, disucss tha already
aviualable list of nominees after the first vote (the one with three
votes each), and perhaps disucss the next round.

I also beleiver that a telconf during the last voting day, Friday, is
absolutely needed in order to make sure we complete the process and
solve any occurrance during the elections.

Disagreements?

The question now is How we meet and vote meanhwile? My suggeton is
that we use a combination of e-mail (during and shortly after the
teleconfs) combined with telephone for those not able to send mail at
that time (there is always someone at an airport...). 

This ias a beginning: telconf and e-mail. But then we should make sure
we "meet" the day after in order to complete the election, b the first
or second or third seat (for the third seat, the simplest one, we
should meet the same day). But how?

In my view, the need to meet derives form the fact that we have to
make sure that we all will be sinding some (multiple) rounds of votes
until we elect a Director prior to a ceratin hour. The problem with
pure e.mail, with no previously scheduled defined hours, is that this
would take days, not hours.

Elisabeth proposes that we schedule a short telconf each day at the
usual time. I propsoe to use telconfs on Monday and Firday (f9rst and
last day) and, try chat for the rest. It is very likley that elections
for the seond and third seat will be hold in only one day, but it is
also likely that the first seat will take tow days. Do we want to
schedule a teleconf each day?

In any case we all should be aware that all NC m,embers should redline
at least one hour each day during that week, as multiple votes will be needed.

My proposal for chat, as I have explained is that allows to check who
is present (s teleonfs), allows genral discussion (as teleonfs) and
also private discussions (unlke telcnfs). Perhaps telconf plus mail is
an equivalent...but less coneient in my vew, and much more expensive ;-))

Just a question: are all of you familiar with chatting software?

Best regards,

Amadeu