Thank you Neil for your reply. On Monday 07 January 2008 14:37, Neil Drumm wrote:
The votes are yes/no on each application to be a permanent or board member. The Drupal Association Statuses, available at http://association.drupal.org/about/statutes-and-internal-regulatio ns, describes how our elections must conducted to be legal.
I was confused about the real nature of the announced election. I apologize for the noise. The fact is that the Election Method used in this particular case (the election of permanent members and board members) *IS approval voting*, i.e. each voter can approve or disapprove *each* candidate. So, I am happy :) It seems that there is no set number of board members and that new board members are elected by voting on each candidate (yes or no for each candidate board member). This is Approval Voting. But: =============== 1.4.2 Article 18: Appointment The Board of Directors shall elect from its members a President, a Treasurer and a Secretary and such other officers as it deems appropriate for the proper operation of the Association. =============== There can only be one President (???). What if there are 3 or more candidates? For elections where we have a limited, set number of seats (e.g. one seat for the president), Approval Voting should be used, and it is not sure that it will be, depending on how the election is organised. I think the Statutes should be amended to specifically state the election method.
For responsibilities within the board of directors, such as fundraising, article 11 states: "It is the Board of Directors, not the General Assembly, which decides over the assignment of offices within the Board of Directors." The GA is not voting directly on board positions; it is possible to elect board members who want to take on overlapping responsibilities. For example, this happened last year, Zack and Kieran ended up both being listed as fundraisers at http://association.drupal.org/about/staff.
Yes, but there can only be one president. I doubt the current seat will be contested this year, but I am thinking much further ahead. The part of the Statutes that I quoted above is unclear about how the election is to proceed. The election method should be explicitly stated. Other than this fairly minor, non-urgent point (which I hope will be fixed this year), I am happy about the rest because, as I said, Approval Voting is being used. Sorry about the noise. Blessings, Augustin.