2015 Elections Overview

[kjayers]

Altonimbus Entertainment is the name of the organization that owns and runs the Kumoricon convention. Altonimbus, and thereby Kumoricon, is governed by a board of directors consisting of nine members who each serve annual terms. Terms begin and end at the annual meeting of the body which elects each board member.

Six of the nine board members are elected by the membership (staff of Kumoricon) at the Annual Meeting of the Membership:

• Chair (a.k.a. President)
• Director of Membership
• Director of Operations
• Director of Programming
• Director of Publicity
• Director of Relations

There is also an amendment being considered to add a seventh member-elected board position.  If this amendment should pass both the board and the membership, the new director will be responsible for areas pertaining to facilities and logistics at-con, including communication technology, IT, and liaising with venue staff.  Until the amendment is resolved (either carried or rejected), we'll refer to the new position as "Potential Director of Facilities Logistics."

The final text of the amendment discussed above names the new position "Director of Infrastructure".  The bylaws amendment creates a new position on the board, the Director of Infrastructure, and eliminates the Vice Chair position, both changes starting with the 2015 convention year. Bylaws amendments require a vote in approval both by the board and by the membership to pass. The board has unanimously passed this amendment and recommends that the members vote to approve it. Details of this amendment, including the full text and a copy of the bylaws with annotated changes, are available in the Bylaws amendment to create Director of Infrastructure forum thread in the staff area. (To access this link requires being a staff member, being logged into the forum, and linking a forum account. Please contact secretary@kumoricon.org for any assistance.) Details of the amendment were also emailed to all ratified staff members at the time of the announcement.   If the amendment is passed by the membership at the annual meeting, an election will be held for the new directorship at this same meeting.

Nominations are currently open for candidates for these positions, including the potential directorship. You may nominate, second, and respond to nominations in Nominations for 2015 Member-Elected Board Positions.

You may post questions to candidates in the respective thread for each position.

At the Annual Meeting of the Membership, elections are held for each position. For each election, there are candidate opening speeches, a period for questions to the candidates, and voting by secret, written ballots.

Members must be present in person to vote, except for proxy voting. If you are a Member of Altonimbus Entertainment but cannot attend the meeting, you may designate another Member as your proxy. This means that the Member you designate as your proxy is authorized to cast your vote in your stead for any election or matter that comes before the membership for a particular meeting. A Member may only act as a proxy for no more than two other Members for a particular vote. You may authorize a proxy in either of two ways: (1) The Member not attending the meeting may authorize another Member using the online proxy authorization system, or (2) The proxy attending the meeting may bring a printed form to the meeting signed by the absent Member. Only one or the other is required, not both. The full proxy policy is printed on the authorization form. Online proxy authorization is currently active.

There is a more detailed elections process document available to staff members (staff login required) detailing the elections meeting policy and procedure.  It is the last link in the General subsection under Documents.

Please see the meetings page for the most up-to-date meeting information.

[DarkStar]

I really don't want to sound like a broken record and post this in every Q&A thread, so I'll just post this here once. 

I would really appreciate it if all candidates for a position posted a resume for the given position and maybe a more general introductory statement about themselves and the position they're running for. Hopefully this will also help others make an educated decision on the best candidate for a position.

[Usagichan]

Would the most appropriate place for those posts be the Q&A threads for their departments?

[kjayers]

Yes, if anyone wishes to post a self introduction and/or résumé, they should do so in the Candidate Q&A for the position for which they are a candidate.

[kjayers]

I've had a few questions offline about the meaning of a "no confidence" vote and what would happen if "no confidence" receives a majority or plurality of votes cast. 

The full elections policy is available here (staff login required) as the last link in the General subsection under Documents.

The answer to first question is on page 7:

Abstention vs. “no confidence”. A member might vote “no confidence” if he or she is greatly dissatisfied with all the candidates running, and would like to see the election postponed so that new candidates would run. A member might abstain if he or she merely does not have a strong opinion, and feels the decision should be carried by the rest of the voting membership body instead.

The answer to the second question is a little less concise, because it depends on the judgment of the tellers as to whether a race is unsuccessful and should have a run-off, or whether the race is unsuccessful and we should allow time for more candidates to be brought forward.  The details about unsuccessful races are found on page 9, but the summary is this:

• No outcome of any election will cause a position to become vacant, because the current office holder stays in office until replacement or resignation (or a vote to remove, but that's a whole different kettle of fish).
• In any case where an election is postponed, it can be re-attempted at each subsequent meeting - nobody is "locked in" for another year.

Here are some examples:

• If an opposed race does not result in a clear winner (one person with a majority) and "no confidence" has fewer votes than any one person, a run-off is likely.
• If an opposed race does not result in a clear winner and "no confidence" has more votes than each candidate, we will likely postpone that election to allow additional candidates to be brought forward.  This means the current office holder will continue in office until a successful election to replace him or her.
• If an unopposed race is unsuccessful - either because "no confidence" has a majority of vote or because votes are split between the named candidate and write-in candidates and/or "no confidence" such that no candidate receives a majority - we will likely postpone that election to allow additional candidates to be brought forward.  This means the current office holder will continue in office until a successful election to replace him or her.