Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board Elections -- voting procedures

[Laura Abbott]

Hi,

On behalf of the Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board (TAB), I'd like to
take this opportunity to announce the voting procedures for the 2019 TAB
elections. As was announced[1], this year we are moving to electronic voting.

Everyone who is registered for kernel summit (co-located with Linux Plumbers
Conference in Lisbon this year) by September 8th 2019 is eligible to vote in
this year's TAB elections. This includes everyone registered for Plumbers and
Maintainers summit. All eligible voters will receive a link from
Condorcet Internet Voting Service (https://civs.cs.cornell.edu) by the
start of the first Plumbers session (September 9th 10am UTC+1). The voting
will run until September 11th at 10am UTC+1.

The list of all candidates and their platform is available at the following
Google doc

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E3_W1c-xJMx9o2PCnKiGt3vqs-mPh77yNO4GSqNipOQ/edit?usp=sharing

We will also be hosting an open TAB session at Plumbers on Monday
September 9th at 18:30. A more detailed FAQ about voting procedures is
below.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to
tab@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx .

Thanks,
Laura

P.S. Please consider this a reminder to send in your TAB nominations!

[1] https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/ksummit-discuss/2019-July/006582.html

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Q: Why are we making this change?
A: As explained in the previous announcement,
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/ksummit-discuss/2019-July/006582.html
In person voting has a number of limitations. We'd like to move to electronic
voting with the objective of giving more members of our community a voice in
the membership of the TAB

Q: Who is eligible to vote?
A: All registered attendees of Plumbers and Kernel Maintainers Summit are
eligible.

Q: If I am registered for Plumbers but not attending can I still vote?
A: We will be sending the e-mail to all registered attendees before confirming
they are present.

Q: Can I register for Plumbers just to vote?
A: Plumbers is sold out this year.

Q: Why bother with electronic voting if the voting pool is still conference
attendees?
A: The kernel philosophy is small incremental changes. Based on discussions
with the TAB, changing the voting method and widening the voting pool
simultaneously was too much for one year. The goal is to run the electronic
voting this year with the same voting pool and then discuss how voting will
work in subsequent years.

Q: When does voting start?
A: E-mails with the voting link will be sent out before the start of the
first Plumbers session on Monday September 9th at 10am UTC+1

Q: When does voting end?
A: Voting ends on September 11th at 10am UTC+1

Q: What's the software used for voting?
A: We will be using the hosted version of the Condorcet Internet Voting Service
(CIVS) at https://civs.cs.cornell.edu

Q: Is this code open source?
A: Yes. The code is available under a BSD-like research license

Q: How do I vote?
A: You will receive an e-mail by Monday September 9th at 10am UTC+1 with
a link to vote.

Q: Is this method of voting secure?
A: Privacy and security is a focus of CIVS. See
https://civs.cs.cornell.edu/sec_priv.html for more information.

Q: The website mentions ranked choice voting. What is this?
A: In ranked choice voting, you rank your preferred choices from most
to least liked. The theory is this results in a more accurate representation
of what the voter pool wants. This is a different method than we've used
for TAB elections in the past where you indicated your preferred $n out
of $m candidates. Because we are using the hosted version of CIVS, we did
not have the option to use our old method of voting.

Q: The description mentions an 'election supervisor'. What is this role?
A: The election supervisor's role is to start and stop the poll, send
links to voters, and set various options for the poll. A single e-mail
address is used to e-mail the link to manage the election, after which
anyone with the link can manage the poll.

Q: Who is the election supervisor for the TAB elections?
A: We have created a mailing list for election management. This mailing
list contains individuals from the kernel community who are not running
for the TAB this year, similar to in-person proctors from past years.
We are still working on getting the mailing list set up, the address will
be announced when it is ready.

Q: What if I lose the e-mail before I vote?
A: Please e-mail the election list, address to be announced

Q: What if I want to change my vote?
A: This is not possible, please make sure you've made your final choices
when you click submit.

Q: What if I want to practice voting?
A: CIVS has a number of sample polls available. Feel free to vote in those
to see how the process works.

Q: What if something unforeseen happens with electronic voting and we don't
end up with results?
A: We will arrange an in person vote similar to previous years.

Q: What if I have questions not addressed here?
A: E-mail tab@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for the current Technical Advisory
Board or the election list, address to be announced