[maemo-community] Maemo Community Council election results

[From: Sebastian 'CrashandDie' Lauwers]

On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 9:25 PM, Dave Neary <dneary at maemo.org> wrote:
> For information, there were 399 votes out of an electorate of 3485,
> giving a turnout of 11.45%, compared to the last election, where there
> were 303 votes out of an electorate of 2339, or a turnout of 12.95%.

Thanks Dave, and obviously congratulations to the new Council. I would
also like to thank all the candidates for providing so many good and
diverse answers and points of view. It was very good to have open
discussions with each and everyone of the candidates, as it allowed
less-involved members to understand who would be representing what.

> The decreased turnout percentage can be explained by the new karma
> forumla and the N900 release, which have resulted in a larger electorate.

Indeed, and a reduction of 1.5% considering the fundamental changes
the Community has seen over the past few months is relatively low.
This being said, I strongly believe that we need to get this number
up, dramatically. For the next election, I would like to see at least
25% participation, and I hope that current and future candidates will
join me in that goal. Involving a higher percentage of the community
will benefit every single individual, and voting isn't a difficult
process. It requires reading a couple of paragraphs per candidate,
copying a code, pasting it, and clicking a couple of times.

Also, for future candidates, I hope that this number makes you realise
how much untapped potential is available to give you votes. We can not
help but notice the gross imbalance there is for specific candidates.
One could say it is because Texrat clicks every thanks button he can
find, or that GeneralAntilles seems to have an IRC feed directly into
his brain, however I also believe that the small number of voters
exacerbates the jump in votes. It is your job, as future candidates,
to recruit more voters. Use your blogs, your TMO signatures, and
whichever creative way you can come up with to reach a greater
audience.

During this election, we had 10 candidates for 5 seats. This is good,
but not enough. A good candidate pool would be of at least 4
candidates per seat (thus a total of 20 candidates per election). The
more candidates, the more likely new candidates will come forward.

I am extremely pleased with the way this election played out. It's
amazing how far we've come in just two years. Just four elections, and
we've already learnt quite an amazing amount about how to orchestrate
the elections. I think we all owe a big Thank You! to Dave for his
invaluable contributions.

Thank you all for everything you've done.

-- 
question = ( to ) ? be : ! be;
      -- Wm. Shakespeare