[Foundation-l] 2011 elections - low turnout

[phoebe ayers]

On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Stephanie Daugherty
<sdaugherty at gmail.com> wrote:
> Funny, secret ballots are actually meant to discourage cabalism, voting for
> favors and voter intimidation.
>
> But yeah, with both lack of turnout and lack of information on candidates
> they do tend to make things easy to manipulate. I really don't think that
> going to an open ballot is right though because the problems can better be
> solved elsewhere and once they are it will provide a valuable safeguard to
> maintain secret ballots.
>
> The nomination process might be one area we can counter the problem.
> Nominations can be public and with some degree of support needed to stand
> for election the names of editors endorsing a candidate can be very telling
> as to what their interests are.

I believe that we did this in... 2007, I think? (with open
endorsements). Anyway, it seemed to lead to cabal-ism and so was
dropped.

Yes, we should have open nominations! Of course, then, people have to
agree to run.... :P

I don't know how we can make the candidates more visible. But if there
are questions about the role of the Board, why it's important, what
qualities make for a good board member, etc. that are keeping people
from voting, please say so. Maybe we can write up some more helpful
documentation from the Board side.

-- Phoebe