Rules & Timeline for the GNOME Foundation 2023 Elections

Elections Rules

  1. See the GNOME Foundation Bylaws (PDF) for general rules.
  2. There are 3 board slots that are to be filled during these elections.
  3. Members of the GNOME Foundation as of 2023-06-21 are eligible to vote in the elections. Members without voting rights such as Emeritus members are not eligible to vote. Anyone who has made a contribution to GNOME can apply for membership by completing the application.
  4. Any person is eligible to be elected to the Board of Directors if they have the support of the required number of voting Members. Members nominations must be seconded by one (1) other member, and non-Members must be seconded by 5% (up to a maximum of 5) members. To announce your candidacy, create a new post within the Elections and Referendums Discourse category with your full name, e-mail, corporate affiliation (if any), and a description of your reasons for wanting to serve as a director. To second a nomination, send a reply to the above candidacy message directly on Discourse with your full name and e-mail used for your Foundation membership. Members standing in an election are not eligible to second other candidates. Candidacies must be announced with the requisite seconds received prior to 2023-06-21, 23:59 UTC.
  5. All discussion related to the elections should be held on Discourse. Members are invited to ask questions to one or all candidates on that forum.
  6. Instructions explaining how to vote will be sent via e-mail to all eligible voters on 2023-06-22, and votes must be returned by 2023-07-06, 23:59 UTC.
  7. Votes will be held confidential during the elections, but an anonymized archive of all submitted votes will be made publicly accessible at its conclusion.
  8. The GNOME Foundation Membership and Elections Committee is responsible for counting the votes. The committee serves at the pleasure of the GNOME Board of Directors as per Section 9.1 of the bylaws.
  9. The candidates voted for most as counted by a single transferable vote system will be elected, except that no more than two individuals affiliated with any one corporation may be sitting on the Board as Directors during the same term. This holds true even in the case a subset of seats is up for renewal: as an example if X is affiliated with the Example Inc. and his/her seat is not up for renewal, the amount of possible candidates affiliated with Example Inc. that may be elected would be 1 (one). On top of that and as taken from the Foundation's Bylaws: "8.2.3: In the event that any election of directors results in a single entity representing greater than 40% of the Board, than the nominee representing that entity receiving the least number of votes, shall be replaced by the nominee receiving the greatest number of votes who was not elected to the Board." For a full definition of corporate affiliation, see the GNOME Foundation Bylaws.
  10. Similarly, no more than two individuals may sit on the Board of Directors who were not Members at the time of their election or appointment. Should this occur in the election results, the next candidate will be appointed instead, as stated in the Foundation's Bylaws: "8.2.4: In the event that any election of directors results in greater than 30% of the Board being such non-Member directors, the non-Member director receiving the least number of votes shall be replaced by the Member nominee receiving the greatest number of votes who was not elected to the Board."
  11. In the event of a tie for the final slot on the board, the Elections Committee will schedule run-off elections as soon as possible.
  12. The Elections Committee will announce preliminary results as soon as possible after the elections close, along with instructions on how to access the votes archive and how to independently verify the vote count.
  13. Any eligible voter may challenge the preliminary results by creating a GitLab issue. prior to 2023-07-20. The decision of the Elections Committee as to any challenge shall be final. Once any challenges have been resolved, the Elections Committee shall announce the final results.
  14. Any questions regarding these procedures should be directed to the Elections Committee by creating a GitLab issue. The committee shall have the power to make any necessary changes or clarifications to these rules at any point during the elections.

Timeline

(all deadlines are 23:59 UTC)