Wikimedia Foundation elections/2024/October 2023 proposal
 | This was part of the proposed "rules package" for the 2024 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election that was put for review by the global Wikimedia community in October 2023. Please find the approved version of this page here. |
Voting method and platform
Single Transferable Vote on SecurePoll will be used in this year's election.
Candidacy process
Shortlisting candidates (if necessary)
The benchmark is a shortlist of 12 candidates (since there are 4 open seats). After the confirmation of the candidates’ eligibility, the following process would take place.
- If there are more than 15 candidates, trigger an affiliate process that will help to shortlist the candidates using the qualification criteria. This would be how affiliates are involved in a process for “community-and-affiliate seats.” Elections Committee and Affiliates to design the process, and the support team will be responsible for managing and implementing the process.
- PROPOSAL: Iterate the process we used in 2022 for the affiliate process: request 1 representative for each affiliate to provide endorsements (or alternatively, the default contact point from each affiliate can provide endorsements); they could endorse a maximum of 12 candidates and at the end. The top 12 candidates with the most endorsements from affiliates would make up the shortlisted candidates.
- Note: the reason the proposal uses the threshold of 15 candidates to trigger this shortlisting process even though the ideal number is 12 candidates is because the 1-3 candidates that are removed might feel ostracized and it would be a lot of work for affiliates to carry out to only eliminate 1-3 candidates from the candidate list.
Community questions for candidates
- The Elections Committee can select from the community questions for the candidates to answer (suggested number of questions should be 5-7 total to ensure equity).
- Note: in 2022, there were two separate sets of questions: one from the affiliates, one from the community. In this proposal, there would only be one call for questions (to be shared alongside the call for candidates) whereby anyone – from communities, projects, affiliates, etc. – can suggest questions to ask the candidates.
- The Elections Committee will finalize the list of questions, which will be shared with the shortlisted candidates.
- Candidates will provide written responses in English within a specific timeframe. Support staff will coordinate the translation of these responses and upload the English and translated responses to Meta at a designated time.
“Meet the Candidates” Panel
- Host a panel interview with all shortlisted candidates. This panel will be available virtually with interpretation; and recorded for those who can’t attend live.
- To ensure equity, the questions will be shared with candidates ahead of time so they can prepare. Support staff will facilitate to make sure there is equal airtime for every candidate.
Timeline
| Phase | Milestone | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Candidacy Process & Campaigning | Announcement of upcoming election process | April 2024 |
| Pre-onboarding for all candidates ("candidates preparedness") | April 2024–August 2024 | |
| Call for Candidates and Call for Questions | May 2024 (open for 3 weeks) | |
| Verification of candidates based on legal and candidate criteria | A week after the close of the Call for Candidates | |
| Shortlisting candidates (if applicable) | June 2024 | |
| Campaigning period for candidates | July 2024–August 2024 | |
| Candidates answer questions from community | July 2024 | |
| “Meet the Candidates” panel interview | August 2024 | |
| Voting & Results | Voting period | End of August or early September 2024 (open for 2 weeks) |
| Scrutiny, tally, verification, and preliminary announcement of voting results | Within 3 weeks of the close of the voting period | |
| Confirmation | Background check and confirmation of elected candidates; Board of Trustees discusses candidates | October 2024–November 2024 |
| Board of Trustees vote on elected candidates | December 2024 |