Maemo_Elections-September_2011

It's been six months which have flown by, but the current Maemo Community Council's term is coming to an end and it's time for the next election.

The next election's voting will run from Thursday, 22nd September to Wednesday, 28th September.

What will be decided

COUNCIL MEMBERS - The council is a body of volunteers taken from the Maemo community that acts as a focal point for the community.  Historically, Council's role has been limited to representing developers on, and users of, maemo.org to Nokia (and vice versa). Examples of council activity can be found on the Council homepage or in the blog.  However, the governance referendum in this election may change the role of Council.

GOVERNANCE REFERENDUM - Due to Nokia's announcement that it will stop funding for maemo.org at the end of 2012, there will be a referendum and a vote to on the future of maemo.org.  There will be an opportunity to vote in favor of updating the role of Council so that it can organize a form of governance for the community OR in favor of winding down maemo.org when the funding stops (thus making the 1st option unnecessary).  There have been several related discussions on the forum:

Council Update July 2011
A modest proposal for a direction
Community Governance
The End is Coming

What's next?

Community members should carefully consider the governance referendum at this time.  It must be debated for a minimum of one month prior to the election, and therefore the referendum will not be changed after Monday, 22nd August 2011

Community members should be considering whether they want to stand for Council.  Anyone who has karma of over 100 is eligible to stand, including employees and sub-contractors of Nokia.  When nominations open, you can nominate someone via an email to the maemo-community mailing list (which they must reply to to accept) or you can put your own hat into the ring by emailing the same list. A further announcement will be made when nominations open, with more information.

The election timescale (all times UTC) is:

Nominations open: 00:00, Thursday, 1st September 2011
Nominations close: 23:59, Wednesday, 15th September 2011
Voting opens: 00:00, Thursday, 22nd September 2010 
Voting closes: 23:59, Wednesday, 28th September 2010

How does the vote work?

Each member of maemo.org, who has an account that is more than 3 months old and who has earned over 10 "karma" points on that account, gets an electronic ballot.  The election is a "single transferrable vote". They rank their Council candidates in order of preference; if their top candidate cannot get elected with the votes they receive, the votes are redistributed until all five seats have been allocated.  The governance referendum vote will be taken at the same time as the Council vote.