I would like to introduce Freda Yamorti Gbande (@Yamorti_1) who will serve as the independent observer for this year’s GOSH Community Council Election. Find out more about Freda by reading her bio below:
Freda Yamorti Gbande is a Ghanaian digital innovation ecosystem enabler currently serving as the Knowledge Manager for the Fab City Foundation. She possesses extensive experience in monitoring and evaluation, knowledge and project management. She is passionate about making a meaningful and sustainable impact in the digital innovation space using design thinking and agile methodologies.
Welcome, Freda! We thank you for contributing your time to the GOSH Community.
What is the purpose of this thread?
I will continue to update this thread throughout the election, to which Freda will respond with questions/concerns, or a simple yay or nay.
I will also send Freda detailed notes as I continue to administer the election so that she can raise any questions or concerns regarding what’s happened.
What Have We Discussed Already?
Freda and I met earlier today to discuss the GOSH Election and the independent observer position. I have sent her all the materials she needs as an observer, and in the coming weeks, I will send her more information on the candidate nominations and voter eligibility process.
Upcoming Action Items for the Secretary and Observer
The Independent observer and election secretary will confirm a meeting time to tabulate the vote in September.
The Independent observer and election secretary will come up with a plan on what to do in the case of a tie during the election. (You can see what the plan was for the 2022 election here)
I am happy to contribute my time as the independent observer for this year’s election. Thanks for having me. And yes, I have received the needed materials on what’s to happen in the coming weeks. I will be following and giving feedback on the election process to ensure its success.
Thank you for the gift of your time and experience with the observer role. I am not deeply involved in GOSH, but I have worked with other organizations enough to know the integral need and deep importance of fair and honest elections. Thank you for being here.
I am back with more updates on the GOSH Election! As many of you have seen on the forum, candidate nominations and voter registration are open. Below, I am sharing more information on how voter eligibility is being vetted below.
Voter Registration & Eligibility
As voters register to vote, I have been checking their eligibility continuously. I have already sent the complete list of registered voters and candidates to Freda (@Yamorti_1) so that she can see how the validation process has been going.
I also created this document where I selected a small sample of registrants, anonymized their information, and explained the process of how I checked their eligibility. I created this to be shared with the community so that you can see how I have been checking voter eligibility.
Tabulating the votes
Freda and I have confirmed a meeting time to tabulate the vote in September, and we have also agreed on a plan for what to do in the case of a tie during the election.
If there were a tie between two candidates in the automatic runoff, whichever candidate scored the highest in the scoring round becomes the winner. If, however, two candidates tied in the automatic runoff and had the same score in the scoring round, we decided that we will flip a coin to determine who the winner is. The tied candidates will be notified before the coin toss as well.
That’s all for now, and I look forward to announcing the candidates later this week!
Bri
I am following up on this thread to share that the 2023 GOSH Community Council Election results have been announced! You can see the results here. I also invite our independent observer, Freda (@Yamorti_1) to raise any questions or concerns she has regarding the election, or to confirm that the election has been carried out fairly.
I do want to share more information regarding the voting platform (Star.vote) and some of the issues we had with it during this year’s election. Luckily, the developers from Star.vote were very quick to respond, and we resolved all of these issues and carried out a fair election. Freda was also cc’d on emails while we worked to fix these issues so that she was in the loop regarding what was going on.
We realized that we were using an older version of Star.vote, which meant that it was more prone to bugs. In the future, the Star.vote team has offered to consult us prior to our election to ensure the best version of Star.vote is being used.
The two issues we faced this election were the following:
The Star. vote platform crashed for a few days during the beginning of the voting period.
One glitch on the platform caused one person’s vote to be recorded incorrectly.
We resolved these issues by doing the following:
When I was notified of the platform being down, I emailed the Star.vote team right away, and they were able to get the webpage back up in a timely manner.
The Star.vote team showed me how to access each ballot, where I was able to manually fix this person’s ballot so that the correct votes were there. I then used STAR Vote 2.0 to count the votes, which allowed me to include the correct data from this person’s ballot.
Considerations for next time:
Although we were able to get the voting platform back up and running, we weren’t able to change/extend the deadline for voting. In future elections, we will work with the Star.vote team to see if it’s possible to change the deadline once the election is live.
The Star.vote advised we avoid elections that require 9 or more winners, as this overworks the system. If in future elections we have ~10 or more candidates, we will consult the Star.vote team to determine the best approach to counting the votes without overwhelming the system.
That’s all for now, thanks everyone for your participation in this year’s election!
Thank you for the comprehensive update on the 2023 GOSH Community Council Election. I appreciate the transparency and the opportunity to serve as an independent observer.
I can confirm that the election was carried out fairly, and I was pleased to have full access to all election procedures, along with timely communication regarding the process. The swift resolution of the issues encountered with the Star.vote platform reflects the dedication of the GOSH team in my opinion.
The outlined considerations for future elections, particularly consulting with the Star.vote team for optimal system performance and vote counting methods, are prudent steps to ensure smooth elections.
I’d also like to extend my congratulations to the newly elected GOSH Community Council members. I wish them the best in their endeavors as they work with the GOSH community, striving for positive contributions and meaningful impact.
Once again, thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this process, and I look forward to future collaborations with the GOSH community.
