Results of the 2015 Election to the X.Org BoD & Vote on the By-Law Changes

[Peter Hutterer]

On Thu, Apr 09, 2015 at 08:27:45AM +0100, Daniel Stone wrote:
> > 2. On the question:
> >
> > Do you agree to the changed By-Laws?
> > No 2
> > Abstain 4
> > Yes 35
> >
> > According to Article 7 of the Oct. 29, 2006 By-Laws the following
> > provision is made for changes to the By-Laws:
> >
> >  "AMENDMENT These By-law may be altered, amended or repealed by
> >   an affirmative vote of at least two-thirds (2/3) of the Members
> >   of X.Org."
> >
> > With 69 active Members a two-thirds of the Members of X.Org is 46.
> > This would be the number of affirmative votes required for acceptance.
> > This was clearly missed. Therefore the changes to the By-Laws
> > were not accepted.
> >
> 
> That's incredibly disappointing, especially with such a resounding majority
> of those who did vote in favour.
> 
> Do we have a good sense of why turnout is so low? How does this compare
> with previous elections, including the last bylaw revision? And, more
> importantly, where to from here?

I'm gonna go with "communication issues". with the delay in the election it
was pushed to the easter week where plenty of people are on holidays. The
final day was easter sunday, so we should've spammed a lot more reminders to
make sure we get through to everyone. And it looks like it wasn't clear to
all members that the 2/3 majority was required to get the bylaws approved. 

Voter participation wasn't bad as such, I think 41 out of 69 is on par or
higher than most other projects, or political elections in general. The need
for a 2/3 majority is what killed us here though.

Personally, I think the clear tendency towards "yes" is motivation enough
that we should try again, with clearer communication how important the vote
is (this is not an official position of the board).
SPI is likely to extend another invitation should we get to that point.

Cheers,
   Peter