Fellowship seats on FSFE’s General Assembly

The General Assembly is the top decision making body of FSFE, and from the annual meeting of 2009 onward, the Fellows will have their own directly elected representation. This follows from a constitutional change adopted unanimously by those represented at this year’s GA meeting.

One will be elected in time for the 2009 GA meeting and a second will be elected approximately one year later. With each Fellowship representative serving a term of two years, there should be an election every year, and from the 2nd election onward, there should always be two Fellows in the GA. And they’re full members.

Fellows will get at least three month’s notice before any election takes place, and voting will use the Schulze method. Debian and other organisations have been using this method for a few years with no big complaints, so it seems to work very well.

The goal is to allow voters to express their preferences clearly, reducing the need or interest in tactical voting. i.e. If there are candidates A, B, and C. You like C, but everyone says C will never win. You prefer A over B. With commonly used electoral systems, if you vote for C, your vote is probably wasted. With the Schulze method, you can vote C-A-B, and if C doesn’t win, your preference for A over B will still be counted.

Fellows can vote as soon as they join. To be sure the candidates know how the Fellowship functions, we decided that candidates must already have been a Fellow for one year.

See our press release.

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Ciarán O’Riordan,
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