Hi everyone!
I would like to introduce Ankita @sudokita, from the Gathering for Open Agricultural Technology (GOAT) community, who is serving as the independent observer for the 2021 GOSH community council election. The election secretary and independent observer will be working together frequently throughout the election process, therefore Ankita and I will use this thread on the forum to talk publicly regarding the election. This will also serve as a space for reporting if needed.
I will continue to update this thread throughout the election, to which Ankita will respond with questions/concerns, or a simple yay or nay.
I will also send Ankita detailed notes from governance working group meetings so that she can raise any questions or concerns regarding what we have planned.
What Have We Discussed Already?
I have already sent Ankita information regarding the candidate nominations so that she can view the validation process for ensuring that candidates are eligible to run and vote.
Best,
Bri
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@sudokita Welcome! And thank you for being the observer for the elections.
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Welcome @sudokita !
btw I felt compelled to subscribe to your forum as well… I couldn’t resist the acronym. 
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@briannaljohns Thank you for the intro and the updates on the election process so far! I appreciate your meticulousness and have reviewed the candidate validation process and resulting nominated candidates.
Everything looks great so far!
@gayatri : Thanks! Happy to contribute and learn from the GOSH example.
@solstag Thanks! Both our communities converged gathering for good things 
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Hello, again @sudokita
I am back with more updates on the voter registration process! I have been validating voter eligibility on an ongoing basis as registrations come in.
I have 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 will also be sending you a full list of the eligible voters shortly.
Ankita, if you could please respond to this with any questions/concerns, or a simple yay or nay, that would be great!
Thanks,
Bri
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Adding another update to this thread!
The voting process has begun, and @sudokita has access to the protocol for administering this election as well.
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I have checked out the voter registration process - all looks like it’s moving along well!
Looking forward to discussing the voting process in my upcoming meeting with @briannaljohns!
Go GOSH go!
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Hey everyone!
I want to share Ankita (@sudokita) and I’s plan for tabulating the votes next week. In particular, we have reached an agreement on what to do if there is a tie between two candidates for the 7th seat.
A quick recap on the election platform:
The election platform we are using is STAR.vote and it works like this:
- Each voter scores all the candidates on a scale from 0-5. All the scores are added and the two highest scoring candidates advance to an automatic runoff.
- The candidate who was preferred by (scored higher by) more voters wins the first seat.
- The next two highest scoring candidates then runoff, with the candidate preferred by more voters winning the next seat.
- This process continues until all positions are filled.
You can read more about this process here, as well as here (under Bloc STAR voting).
What about a tie?
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!
-Bri
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Hi again @sudokita,
Now that the election has finished and the new council was announced, I am providing a space for any outstanding comments or reports you may have on the election process and/or voting tabulation procedure. If so, please let us know in this thread .
Thanks!
Bri
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