Hi all,
I just wanted to note that the facilitators have now posted their meeting notes from the election process:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019/notes
These clearly raise some issues. Hopefully these issues can be addressed before any future similar elections (in fact, I think some solutions are relatively simple):
1) Evidently not all voters understood the voting system - a small number appear to have allocated 'points' rather than preferences e.g. "this candidate got 10 votes from our members so we are putting 10 in the box" - which had the effect of giving them 10th preference (pretty low) - This can probably be addressed by improving ballot paper design, e.g. by asking voters to select "First" "Second" etc etc rather than type numbers into boxes.
2) There seem to have been some issues around affiliates realising they had mis-voted, and then changing their minds and asking for replacement ballot papers. This is kind of what you'd expect, but there appears to have been at least one case where a replacement ballot was requested using an unexpected channel and then not issued. - I'm not sure how thorough the instructions/communication on this issue were but strikes me as a learning point for the future.
3) There appear to have been some challenges in the relationship between the WMF staff involved and the election facilitators, including (apparently) at one point a possibly inaccurate election result being circulated within WMF before the facilitators had counted it - This was the first time the WMF staff had assisted with the ASBS process and I'm not sure how clear the boundaries of the different roles were. Certainly one to clarify in future...
If I read these notes correctly, it is the case that if the election facilitators had taken different interpretations of how to handle points 1 and 2, the result might well have been different.
However, so far as I can see the facilitators have done as much as they can to report the result accurately. Ultimately, facilitators can only count the votes that are actually received through the election process, and can't start double-guessing voters' intentions.
Chris
On Thu, Jun 13, 2019 at 5:59 PM Jan-Bart de Vreede jdevreede@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi All
Thanks to the election committee for facilitating this election, and all those who voted. And as Pierre said: thanks to all those who put their name forward, it is a lot of work and involves a lot of responsibility.
Congrats to Nataliia and Shani!
And thank you so much to Christophe for serving!
Jan-Bart “recycled” de Vreede ;) Board Member Wikimedia Netherlands
On 13 June 2019 at 00:56:18, Ad Huikeshoven (ad@huikeshoven.org) wrote:
*Dear Wikimedians, We are writing to let you know the result of the election for the 2 Affiliate Selected Board Seats on the Wikimedia Foundation board. The successful candidates were Nataliia Tymkiv and Shani Evenstein Sigalov. A total of 122 affiliates voted, 85% of the 143 eligible to vote, which is a record. As you know the election was conducted under a variation of the Single Transferable Vote, which meant that prorated votes were redistributed between candidates to come up with the final result. In the 10th step of counting the final place, after Nataliia Tymkiv was elected, was between Shani Evenstein Sigalov (40.519678) and Richard Knipel (40.480322). We have put the full count narrative on meta so that others can verify it if they wish.[1] It is the closest ASBS result for some time, and all candidates brought very valuable perspectives to the work of the WMF. In the 9th step of counting Reda Kerbouche lost by a very small margin. Adding a ballot with rank #1 for Richard or Reda would result in them being elected instead of Shani. The same goes for removing a ballot. Changing the ranking on one of the ballots in a specific can way can result in a different outcome for the second seat. This is an election in which every vote counts. As in any election, there is a chance that some voters misinterpreted the instructions and voted wrongly. We don't see a justification for an action as extraordinary and controversial as opening votes for review after the vote period is over. The instructions were visible and clear: "Rank any candidate from 1 (your preferred candidate) to 11 (your least preferred candidate)." After voting, voters received a confirmation email stating the name of each candidate they voted with the number of their rank: Rank 1, Rank 2, ... The agency of voters should be respected. As part of the retrospective we may identify areas of improvements on our side, but still the process was quite simple and documented. Some voters realized they made a mistake and requested a new ballot. New ballots were issued in those cases. This choice was done because of the specific situation of this election, since the process was complex for new affiliates and participation, diversity and inclusion were a clear goal.[2] We have published on meta information about who got a new ballot within the voting deadline.[3] The Election Facilitators have been available nearly 24 hours a day monitoring the various communication channels to answer any questions affiliates might have. We did our best at answering all of them. After our own scrutiny of the data, and based on our experience in community processes, we strongly advise the community to respect the integrity of the process, and advise against allowing any modifications of votes at this point. If the votes had been reopened for modification with or without publishing vote results, that would have caused significant confusion and criticism that could have jeopardized the entire election. We will publish a debrief with recommendations for a next ASBS process on meta.[4] We invite all representatives of affiliates to a feedback session at Wikimania.[5] We would like to congratulate Nataliia Tymkiv and Shani Evenstein Sigalov and thank everyone who stood. Regards, Ad Huikeshoven, Lane Rasberry, Jeffrey Keefer, Neal McBurnett, Abhinav Srivastava, Alessandor MarchettiElection Facilitators [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019/Results < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019/Results
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/Resolution_20... <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/Resolution_20...
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019/New_ball... <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019/New_ball...
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019/Debrief < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019/Debrief
[5] https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/ASBS_Feedback https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/ASBS_Feedback* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe