How to run a board election

To run a board election, first you need nominees. Then, the nominees will be voted on. Any nominee with at least one vote and no blocks will be accepted to the board.

Getting nominees

Time to election: t - 30 days

Goals:

• Acquire at least 10 nominees for the Board with good diversity.

• Give Noisebridgers appropriate heads-up that the election is coming.

Theory: Nominees for the Noisebridge board should be sourced from as many diverse parts of the community as possible. Beware the "all male panel". Go ask the Sewing Guild, the Music Guild, the Gaming Guild, and so on. Don't be satisfied with a short list of people who are well-known on Slack.

Nominees may self-nominate.

Action: Announce in ALL of the following locations that the board election will be occurring on $DATE:

• The noisebridge-discuss and/or noisebridge-announce mailing list.

• #the-board on Slack

• discuss.noisebridge.info (with the assumption that it will cross-post into Slack #general)

Running an election

Time to election: t - 14 days

Goals:

• Verify the list of nominees.

• Remind Noisebridgers that the election is coming.

• Give people a way to vote.

• Actively seek out Members who may not be paying attention.

Theory: Make sure people who were nominated really are interested in being part of the board by contacting them, verifying their preferred name and pronoun, and asking them what their Platform shall be (optional, but entertaining).

Action:

• Send form link out to as many platforms as are relevant to Noisebridge's functioning Membership. (As of May 2020, we use Slack, Discuss, and the mailing lists.)

• In order to enroll the greatest number of Members to vote, get the Secretary to email the form out to all Members in the list.

• Make sure that the voting method contains a way to veto.

Example form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfKW6OCHCw5LOgg0c_1chajVRbsrYLCN0okM3BGEuhcNTOKag/viewform?usp=sf_link

Example email: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PfpMT20hb_K3oxm13lHSTektyiAQUTmiG82tTDlrmHY/edit?usp=sharing

Closing the Polls

Time to election: t - 8 hours.

Goals:

• Warn Members that voting is about to end.

Theory: Get a reminder out so that the last-minute types have no excuse for not participating.

Actions:

• Resend the form via all useful vectors, letting people know the polls are about to close.

Electing the Board

Time to election: t + 1 day.

Goals:

• Provide a 24-hour buffer for receiving "reasonably" late votes due to electronic latency or whatever.

• Close the polls.

• Verify and count the votes.

Theory: Check if people who voted are actually Members. (The Secretary should have a list, or maybe you just happen to know all the people that voted and know that the are Members.) Any nominee with at least one vote and no blocks will be accepted to the board. We historically have 5 members on the board. The elected board members are the nominees with the most votes and no blocks. Blocks are anonymous and need no public explaination.

Actions:

• Put anyone on the board who received at least 1 vote and no blocks.

• Once the votes have been counted, announce the new board on the mailing list, Slack, and update the Board page.