Judge Foundry’s Elections Committee is pleased to announce that the election process for Board of Directors is starting now! Judge Foundry is a non-profit membership organization led by a five-member Board of Directors. Our Bylaws require an election for a new Board of Directors at each Annual Meeting for a one-year term. Annual Meetings of the membership are required to take place every September.
A forthcoming set of Standing Rules will formalize the process for this election at our Annual Meeting. We use Proportional Representation with Ranked Choice Voting, specifically the Meek STV rules, discussed in the “Voting System” section below.
Level 3, 4, and 5 Members of Judge Foundry may nominate themselves for the Board of Directors. All voting members may cast a ballot. This article lays out the schedule and procedures for this election.
Additional business, such as amendments to the bylaws and other motions, may also take place at the Annual Meeting. Separate announcements will be forthcoming, but we will aim to condense all links and information on our Election Index page.
Because business at our Annual Meetings is subject to Rules of Order and Standing Rules, these deadlines and procedures are subject to change. We are beginning this process now because we want to get candidates and their platforms in front of the voters with plenty of time for Q&A, scrutiny, and for voters to make their decisions.
In the rest of this article, changes compared to our previous election (not counting simple changes to dates or names of offices) are marked with a red line in the left gutter, as seen in this paragraph, or a highlight like this text, if only part of a paragraph has been changed.
Schedule
Note: Deadlines are at 11:59 PM, UTC-12, also known as “Anywhere on Earth”, unless a time and timezone is specified. “Anywhere on Earth” means that the window closes only when that date has passed in every timezone on Earth.
- A preliminary list of eligible voters will be shared with Judge Foundry members once the Annual Meeting has been formally scheduled and announced.
- Nominations are open today. The deadline to nominate yourself is August 14th.
- Members can submit questions to be asked of all candidates. The Q&A period starts when nominations close and ends August 28th.
- Questions will be forwarded to candidates during the Q&A period. The last chance to submit or update answers is September 4th.
- Candidates may also submit a closing statement by September 4th.
- Note: We reserve the right to extend any Q&A deadlines if active debate warrants such an extension and if our schedule permits such a change.
- The final list of eligible voters will be generated on the Record Date for the Annual Meeting as set by the Board of Directors.
- Voting will be open during the Annual Meeting.
- Votes will be counted and winners announced as soon as possible after voting closes.
Candidates
Eligible Candidates
Judge Foundry members can run for Board of Directors if:
- They hold a Level 3 or higher Judge Certification with Judge Foundry.
Nominations
Members may nominate themselves today. Only self-nominations are accepted – if you think someone else should run, please encourage them to nominate themselves. The last day to nominate yourself is August 14th.
The Elections Committee has curated a few default questions which we believe will help voters evaluate each candidate. Nominees may (but are not required to) include a nomination statement of up to 4,000 characters, and answers to any or all of the default questions of up to 1,500 characters each. The default questions are:
- Board Members work on a wide variety of tasks and projects. What would your “specialty” or main focus area be as a Board Member?
- Many questions related to the value of Judge Foundry membership. First, regarding certifications: How would you ensure that Judge Foundry Certifications have value in the eyes of TOs and other stakeholders?
- Second, outside of certifications, how do you think Judge Foundry should best use its limited resources to benefit the members?
Nominees will receive edit access to a personalized Google Document where they may submit their responses to the Elections Committee for publication, allowing them to update their statements and answers any time before the final Q&A deadline.
When nominations are received, the Elections Committee will verify eligibility and notify the nominee of the decision.
The Judge Foundry Elections Site will have a page with a list of offices, and a list of nominees for each office, which will be updated as nominations are accepted.
Pages for each candidate will be created on the Judge Foundry Elections Site. Nomination statements and answers to questions will be published on these pages. This will occur at the end of the Nomination window, unless a candidate consents to have their statements and answers published earlier.
Q&A
Eligible voters may ask questions of all of the candidates. Each voter may submit up to two questions, which should be concise and neutrally worded. A link to the form to submit a question will be posted on the election index page. Users submitting this form must identify themselves to the Elections Committee to verify eligibility, but their name will not be shared with the candidates or published.
The Elections Committee will review questions, and will combine, reword, or exclude questions as needed to achieve the following goals: Questions should be clear, concise, neutrally phrased, and directly related to the office sought; they should not repeat other questions, contain the asker’s personal opinion, or serve as an attack on any person. Mindful of the candidates’ and voters’ time, we will select questions related to the most popular topics.
Candidates are not required to answer any or all questions, but questions will be published regardless of whether an answer is received.
Closing Statements
After the Q&A period is over, candidates may submit a closing statement of up to 4,000 characters to sum up the debate and make their final appeal to voters. This will be posted at the top of the candidate page for ease of access.
Candidate Conduct
If a candidate’s nomination statement or answer to any question exceeds the character limits, or in the opinion of the Elections Committee, is unfit for publication due to incivility or personal attacks, it may be returned to the candidate with an explanation.
Candidates are free to discuss their candidacy in other spaces, subject to the rules and norms of those spaces. Conduct of candidates in spaces other than the Judge Foundry Elections Site will not be regulated by the Elections Committee.
Voters
Eligible Voters
The Elections Committee, with assistance of the Board of Directors, will prepare a preliminary list of eligible voters. A link will be added to this article once the list is available. Please check back to ensure that your information is correct. This list will be updated until the record date for this election with any changes in membership. On the record date for the annual meeting set by the Board of Directors, it will become final.
Your ballot will be sent to your email address on JudgeApps, please verify that it is correct on your JudgeApps profile.
Q&A
Once the full list of nominees has been announced, you can ask questions of the nominees. See the Q&A section above for more details on this process.
Voting
When the elections are opened, our online election provider will email you a link to your ballot. Please see this article for a walkthrough on the type of ballot that will be used for this election.
Ballots will be sent to your verified email address on file in JudgeApps.
Don’t forward or share your email. If you share the link, or forward the ballot email, then someone else could use your ballot to vote on your behalf.
If you notice any issue with your ballot, do not submit your vote, and contact the Elections Committee at elections@judgefoundry.org.
If you do not receive a ballot, contact the Elections Committee at elections@judgefoundry.org.
Please be careful while voting your ballot. Once your ballot is submitted to our election provider, no one can view or change your selections. Our election provider ensures that no one can see who you voted for.
Technical Details
Voting System
Board of Directors elections use Single Transferable Vote (STV) voting using the Meek ruleset. STV and Proportional Ranked Choice Voting (Proportional RCV or P-RCV) are two different ways of describing the same type of voting system – the former emphasizes that each voter has one vote, which is transferable between candidates, and the latter emphasizes that the elected board will proportionally resemble the electorate.
Good explanations of this voting system are available from Fairvote and Opavote. Voters will be presented a list of candidates in a random order. They can assign ranks to each candidate, where their preferred candidate is rank 1, their second preference is rank 2, and so on. Voters do not need to rank all of the candidates.
Counting consists of a number of automatic “rounds”. Candidates with enough votes are elected, and surplus votes pass down to the voters’ next choices. If no candidate can be elected, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed to the voters’ next choices. It is never necessary for voters to cast a new “runoff” ballot – their original ballot fully reflects their preferences and is used in every round of counting. This process tends to lead to a board which proportionally represents the electorate’s views on the issues that are most important to the voters.
Vote Counting
When we close the election, the results will automatically be counted and displayed by the election provider. Information provided by them is for auditing purposes, and is not official until the Elections Committee reviews, audits, and certifies the results.
Publishing Results
After the voting is complete, the Elections Committee will publish the list of winners, the list of ballots (presented in a random order without voter identification), and the list of eligible voters showing which voters actually submitted a vote.
Exceptions
The Elections Committee may modify timelines or other procedures above if needed to respond to unexpected circumstances.