[tei-council] Electing a TEI Technical Council Chair for next year.

[Syd Bauman]

summary
-------
1) I am strongly in favor of secret ballot (when > 1 candidate)
2) Person running vote should be at least an outgoing Council member
   who is not voting, if not someone who is not on Council at all.
3) I've changed the procedure on the wiki:
   a) a "returning officer", not Chair, runs election
   b) newly elected chair assumes duties on 01 Jan. 

details
-------
Again, I don't think we are really going to hold outright elections
often. I think we'll usually find there's obvious consensus for the
one <subst><del>poor</del><add>brave</add></subst> soul who's willing
to be Chair.

That said, in this situation the advantages of a secret ballot
(political privacy, decreased voter influence) seem to outweigh the
disadvantages (lack of accountability, decreased cost of vote
buying). This is because in our situation the disadvantages are
essentially non-existent. The Councilors are not accountable to
anyone for these votes, and really, who's going to buy the TEI
Council Chair?


SR> I would note the Board has not (I believe) ever had a secret ballot
SR> for its chair, or in its selection of Council chair.

Not only does the Board sometimes hold secret ballots, one year
(2006?) you, Sebastian, ran in one (against Dan O'Donnell).


FC> That's why I suggested that iff there is only one candidate and
FC> iff nobody ask for secret vote the choice can be an open
FC> expression of unanimous consensus. In this case we can of course
FC> use e-mail in this list to express the vote.

I agree, and think this is likely to be the most common case. 


HC> ... source of potential problems if anyone feels they can't
HC> express a dissenting opinion openly.

Maybe, but I think Fabio's scenario (I think C is more qualified, but
B is my friend) is far more likely. And a secret ballot does not
prevent anyone from explicitly saying (or lying about) their vote.


JC> ... with a system like opavote the only power the person setting
JC> up the election has is ...

Maybe, but (as James points out) we may not always be using opavote,
and even if we are, let's avoid even the appearance of impropriety.


Since new chair might be a newly elected member, cannot officially
start duties until 01 Jan, when term starts (per by-laws).