Beginning of the 2004 GNOME Foundation elections

[Vincent Untz <vincent vuntz net>]

The GNOME Foundation Membership & Elections Committee is proud to
announce the beginning of the 2004 elections for the Foundation's Board
of Directors. A description of the role of the Board can be found at
http://foundation.gnome.org/elections/overview.html.


Who can vote?
-------------

To be able to vote, you need to be a member of the GNOME Foundation and
your membership needs to be valid at least until the end of the
elections. For example, a member whose membership ends on December 17th
2004 won't be able to vote for the elections.

If you're not a member of the GNOME Foundation or if you need to renew
your membership, you have to apply at
http://foundation.gnome.org/membership/application.php before November
5th 2004 (23:59 UTC). Members who need to renew will shortly receive an
e-mail with some instructions to help them.
If you have applied before this date and if you are accepted, then you
will be able to vote for these elections.

Note that it is possible that the processing of your application takes
some time. This won't prevent you to vote: you will be able to vote if
you have applied before the deadline and if your membership is accepted.

You can look at http://foundation.gnome.org/elections/2004/voters.html
to see people who will be able to vote as of October 25th. This list
will be updated on November 5th, once we'll know the full list of
voters. If you think you are able to vote, we encourage you to verify
that you are in this list and that your e-mail address is correct.
Please report any problems to elections gnome org 


Being a candidate
-----------------

If you are a member of the GNOME Foundation and are interested in
running for election, you may nominate yourself by sending an e-mail to
foundation-announce gnome org with your name, e-mail address, corporate
affiliation (if any), and a description of why you'd like to serve
before November 8th 2004 (23:59 UTC).

You should also send a summary of your candidacy announcement (75 words
or less) to elections gnome org  If you are not yet a GNOME Foundation
member and would like to stand for election, you must first apply for
membership and be accepted to be eligible to run. (You may, however,
announce your candidacy prior to formal acceptance of your application;
should your application not be accepted, you will not be included on the
ballot.)


Anonymous voting
----------------

We are currently investigating the technical solutions for an anonymous
voting process, so it is not known yet whether the ballots will be
anonymized or not. The decision will be taken before the ballots are
sent to members and announced to all members.


Timeline
--------
Note that the timeline is available in webcal format at:
webcal://foundation.gnome.org/elections/2004/timeline.ics

(all deadlines are 23:59 UTC/18:59 EST)

    October 2004
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                1  2
 3  4  5  6  7  8  9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24(25)26 27 28 29 30  list of candidates open (25th)
31

    November 2004
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
    1  2  3  4 (5) 6  applications/renewals closed for elections (5th)
                      start collecting questions for the candidates (5th)
 7 (8) 9(10)11 12 13  list of candidates closed (8th), questions
                      to be sent to the candidates are choosed (8th)
                      list of candidates running for election announced,
                      questions emailed to all candidates (10th)
14 15 16 17 18(19)20  ballots sent to voters (19th)
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30

    December 2004
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
          1  2 (3) 4  ballots must be returned (3rd)
 5 (6) 7  8  9 10 11  preliminary election result announced (6th)
12 13 14 15 16(17)18  challenges to election results close (17th)
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30 31

In the case of a tie, there's another round of votes starting December
6th and ending December 13th.


Questions
---------

For more information, please look at the elections procedures at
http://foundation.gnome.org/elections/2004/rules.html. If you have any
questions, feel free to send them to elections gnome org or to
foundation-list gnome org 

The GNOME Foundation Membership & Elections Committee

  Eric Baudais
  Gael Chamoulaud
  Sayamindu Dasgupta
  Gregory Leblanc
  Vincent Untz