Re: Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board Elections -- voting procedures

[Laura Abbott]

On 7/27/20 5:31 PM, Laura Abbott wrote:
> On behalf of the Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board (TAB), I'd
> like to announce the voting procedures for the 2020 TAB elections.
> The pool of eligible voters will consist of the following:
>
> 1) All attendees of the Linux Plumbers conference (i.e. kernel summit)
>
> 2) Anyone who is not a kernel summit attendee will also be eligible to
> vote if the following criteria are met:
> -- There exists three kernel commits in a mainline or stable released
> kernel that
> --- Have a commit date in the year 2019 or 2020
> --- Contain an e-mail address in one of the following tags or merged
> tags (e.g. Reviewed-and-tested-by)
> ---- Signed-off-by
> ---- Tested-by
> ---- Reported-by
> ---- Reviewed-by
> ---- Acked-by
>
> We will be using the electronic voting method that we used in 2019. All
> Linux Plumbers Attendees will automatically receive a ballot. Anyone
> who is otherwise eligible to vote should e-mail 
> tab-elections@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx to request a ballot. The deadline
> for requesting a ballot is August 17, 00:00 UTC (one week before
> Linux Plumbers)
>
> For those who would like to know the thought process behind this:
>
> Last year, we successfully used electronic voting for the TAB
> elections. Given the circumstances of this year, we have no other
> reasonable option for voting. While we could continue to limit voting to
> kernel summit attendees, one of the goals of moving away from in person
> voting was to potentially expand the voter pool. Since kernel summit is
> not being held in person this year, it makes sense to expand the voting
> pool at the same time.
>
> We will be sending a call for nominations and announcements about
> when voting will start at a later date.
>
> If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to the tab at
> tab@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

As a reminder, this vote is coming up. Some FAQs from last year on
virtual voting:

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: 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.

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, 
tab-elections@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Q: What if I lose the e-mail before I vote?
A: Please e-mail tab-elections@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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.