Hello everyone,

Voting for the election for the members for the Movement Charter drafting committee is now open. In total, 70 Wikimedians from around the world are running for seven seats in these elections. 

As recommended by the Movement Strategy recommendations, the goal is to assemble a Drafting Committee that will draft a Movement Charter to ensure a common framework for decision making in the Wikimedia movement. The committee will consist of 15 members in total: The online communities vote for 7 members, 6 members will be selected by the Wikimedia affiliates through a parallel process, and 2 members will be appointed by the Wikimedia Foundation. The plan is to assemble the committee by November 1, 2021.

Voting is open from October 12 10:00 UTC to October 24, 2021 23:59 (Anywhere on Earth).

Learn more about the candidates

Candidates from across the movement have submitted their candidatures. Learn about each candidate to inform your vote. The statements are translated to a number of languages, so you can have access to the information in many of your preferred languages.

Additionally, we are piloting a so-called “Election Compass” for this election. Click yourself through the tool and respond to the 19 statements, and you will see which candidate is closest to you! The tool is available in ~9 languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, Indonesian, Hausa).

Voting

Similar to the previous Board elections, we have chosen Single Transferable Vote for the voting system. The benefit of this is voters can rank their choices in order of preference. Learn more about voting requirements, how to vote, and frequently asked questions about voting.

To cast your vote, please go to SecurePoll.

We also offer two question and answer times, if you have any questions regarding the Movement Charter and the voting process:w

• Wednesday, 19:00 UTC, on Google Meet

• Thursday, 13:00 UTC, on Zoom (that’s the Conversation Time with Maggie Dennis)

Please write a short message to answers@wikimedia.org if you want to participate in one of these.

Please help select people who best fit the needs of the movement at this time. Vote and spread the word so more people can vote for candidates. Our aim is to have a committee with Wikimedians that combine the diversity of the Wikimedia Movement as well as a great mix of competencies.

Best,

Kaarel Vaidla, on behalf of the Movement Strategy & Governance team, Wikimedia Foundation