Back in February, during the voting period to elect the new Board Members of Group 2, the Members of Open Source Matters, Inc. had the opportunity to vote for an amendment to the Bylaws in order to change the voting system in the organization.

Flat Election System

Since the transition various steps have been made to make voting more democratic, for example, aDoodle has been implemented to make voting anonymous.

Current system

Currently only Team Leads get to vote for their Department’s Coordinator. Officer votes are also unfairly weighted. Team leads and Department Coordinators place a vote each. This vote is then tallied up into a single department vote. Officers however get to cast one vote per person.

The new proposal

Voting for your Department Coordinators

All active team members, assistant team leaders, team leaders and the current department coordinator within the department up for election, cast 1 vote per person.

Examples:

• Fred is an active member of the Showcase Team (Ops), Resource Directory Team (Ops), Bug Squad (Prod) and the JUG Team (Events).  Fred is active in 3 different departments.
  • Fred will be able to cast one (1) vote for Ops DC, one (1) vote for Production DC and one (1) vote for Events DC,

• Wilma is an active member of  the Bug Squad Team (Prod), Release Team (Prod), A11y Team (Prod).  Wilma is active in one department.
  • Wilma will be able to cast one (1) vote for Production DC.

Voting for our Officers

All active team members, assistant team leaders, team leaders, department coordinators and officers cast 1 vote per person.

Examples:

• Fred is an active member of the Showcase Team (Ops), Resource Directory Team (Ops), Bug Squad (Prod) and the JUG Team (Events).  Fred is active in 3 different departments.
  • Fred will be able to cast one (1) vote for each officer up for election.

• Wilma is an active member of the Bug Squad Team (Prod), Release Team (Prod), A11y Team (Prod).  Wilma is active in one department.
  • Wilma will be able to cast one (1) vote for each officer up for election.

Avoiding Ghosts/Badge Wearers

We are implementing benchmarks for what constitutes an active member. This initiative was started in the JUGs team a couple of years ago. When members are unable to attend meetings or meet minimum commitment (set by each team individually) they are dropped to contributor. When their available time / efforts increase they are brought back up to member. This is the best way of ensuring members are actually active rather than just badge wearing ghosts. DC’s will monitor teams and liaise with Team Leads to ensure that members listed on the volunteer portal put in the effort expected in that team to be regarded as a member.  This allows for people to come and go as their lives allow whilst recognising those who are active for their efforts.  Everyone is welcome in this project, but if we are to be a true democracy and also recognise input properly, we need to do this.

The amendment to the Bylaws to apply this change is being currently drafted. The current version of the Bylaws (prior the proposed amendment) is available here.

Voting Results

Pursuant Article XI of the Bylaws of Open Source Matters, Inc. the proposed change to the Bylaws has been submitted for Member Approval in a Special vote held for this purpose.

• 123 members had the right to vote.
• 67 members voted (54.47%)
• 8 members were attentive but did not vote (6.5%)
• 48 members were inattentive (39.02%)

Voting split

• 60 members approved the changes (89.55% of voters)
• 4 members voted against the changes (5.97% of voters)
• 3 members abstained (4.48% of voters).

The amendment passed with majority of votes. The Secretary will prepare an amended version of the Bylaws and the Board will proceed with the filing process in order to apply the changes with legal effects.