Hi all,
I just wanted to note that the facilitators have now posted their meeting
notes from the election process:
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(a)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(a)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_2…
<
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/Resolution_2…
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019/New_bal…
<
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019/New_bal…
[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>*
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