Reps/Council/Elections

Warning: With effect from 1st September 2023, the Mozilla Reps program was closed and activities ended.

Overview

Every 6 months, 3 or 4 Mozilla Reps (depending on the election cycle) are elected to sit on the Mozilla Reps Council (aka ReMo Council or aka the "Jedi Council") for a 1 year term. The elections ensure that the program stays true to its core values of participation, accountability and transparency.

All Mozilla Reps Council members who are elected to the council agree to the following responsibilities and to be hold accountable by these criteria.

Election Rules

Voters

• All active Mozilla Reps are eligible to exercise their right to vote.

Voting

• Voting is done via (to be defined after decommissioning the Reps Portal) and each Rep can cast a vote only once per election.

• The elections shall utilize Range Voting, where each voter will assign a score from 0 to N to each candidate (where N is the number of candidates). A voter abstains from voting by assigning a score of 0 to any number of candidates.

• With the exception of the system administrators, no one shall be able to associate a Rep to a vote, thus voting is anonymous.

• A Rep cannot, under any circumstance, use another Rep's account to vote. Any Rep found undermining the sanctity of the elections shall be removed from the program, after investigation by the Council.

• Reps shall be given at least 72 hours to cast their vote after the elections have commenced. The length of the voting period is up to the Reps Peers to decide.

• No vote shall be counted after the prescribed voting period.

Candidates

Only Mozilla Reps who have had experience mentoring (ie. being a Mentor or attended one of the Participation/Open innovation as invitees to Cohort's events are eligible to self-nominate themselves as candidates for a Council seat. After self-nomination, the Reps Peers will review the nominees' eligibility based on the following criteria:

• General skills:
  • Proficiency in English
  • Availability for extra Council duties (eg. chairing, staff meetings, work weeks etc...)
  • Ability to travel (once or twice per term)
  • Take initiative on leading projects inside Reps
  • Be critical to help shape the volunteer strategy
  • Have a clear understanding of Mozilla’s current direction and goals
  • Have strategic thinking
  • Be able to communicate Reps mission and vision to the rest of the org and volunteers
  • Understand and be able to communicate Reps as the leading mobilizers program
  • Be able to articulate his/her opinion in strategic meetings
  • Have a strong background around the open web (and free software) movement
  • Expertise on the ground with local communities and grassroots efforts
  • Be recognized as a supportive leader inside the Mozilla community
  • Have existing relationships across the organization with both volunteers and employees

• Nice to have:
  • Geographically spread

If, after the review of self-nominations period is finished, there are as many candidates as there are seats available on the Council, each candidate will be assigned a seat and no election will be held.

After the self-nominated Rep is cleared by the Peers, they will be officially announced as a candidate by the Reps Peers.

If a self-nominated Rep is not cleared by the Peers to run for election, they cannot appeal that decision.

Campaigning

• Candidates are given 7 days to campaign and communicate their agenda, plans, achievements as a Rep/Mentor, and personal strengths, to the Mozilla Reps voting body.

• Candidates can use Discourse, the public Reps communication channels, personal website/blog, a Mozilla Wiki page or any other public channel to post information regarding their candidacy. Messages in private are discouraged.

• The set of questions that each candidate is required to answer can be found here. The Reps Peers create a Discourse topic to hold all candidate's answers in one place.

• Use of Social Media shall be acceptable, provided posts are not private or targeted, deemed as spam, negative, nor detrimental to the election process and the Mozilla Reps program in general.

• Any Candidate found campaigning in violation of aforementioned guidelines shall be disqualified after investigation by the Peers if elections have not yet started. If the candidate won a seat and is found to have violated the guidelines, the candidate will be be removed from the Council and replace with the candidate who was ranked just below after the range voting.

• Mozilla Reps Council members cannot make public endorsements of candidates during the campaign period.

Campaign video

All candidates can produce a short campaign video if they wish to do so. This video can be uploaded to any online service and then be linked in the Discourse Q&A answer post every candidate needs to post.

Video is a great format to help give a human face to the election process. It also helps candidates tap into their creative side and connect with Reps on another level that's direct, genuine and a lot of fun. Through the video medium, Reps can get to know the candidates better, understand what they stand for and have a more personal connection with the candidates. There are no specific requirements as to what equipment or software you need to use, as long as the video is good enough quality so that your face is recognizable and your voice is understandable.

The video can last up to 2 minutes (120 seconds). If you submit a video that is longer, then the Peers reserve the right to remove it from your post until it fulfills this requirement.

Town Halls

During the Spring 2020 Council Elections we will experiment with running a full-day chat-based Ask-me-anything. You can find more information on Discourse.

Results

• The three (or four) candidates (depending on the election cycle) who get highest number of votes shall be declared newly elected Council members.

• If there are fewer elected candidates than the available number of Council seats, the Council will assign a provisional Council member who will sit on the Council for six months (ie. until the next election). The provisional Council member's seat will be vacated after the next elections.

• In case of a tie that affects the outcome of the elections, the tie shall be broken by the following criteria:

• • The Rep with the least number of days spent as part of the Council shall be declared the winner. This is to ensure a good representation for the Council and giving all Mentors a chance to be part of the Council.

• • If there is a tie with the first criterion, the Peers shall deliberate based on the Candidate's track record as a Mentor, and the Peers shall break the tie by vote.

Appeals

A Candidate has 48 hours after elections results are made public to file an appeal to contest the results of the elections.

Election Schedule

The Election Schedule is adapted for public holidays and other events, therefore it is custom to every single election. You can find an example here: https://github.com/mozilla/Reps/issues/327

General template:

- [ ] DATE - Timeline presentation and announcement in Reps Call / Discourse / Mailing list (@ioana-chiorean)
- [ ] DATE - Call for Nominees starts (1 week) (@ioana-chiorean)
- [ ] DATE - Call for Nominees closes (@ioana-chiorean)
- [ ] DATE - Call with Nominees & Peers to make sure they understand accountability (Peers)
- [ ] DATE - Q&A starts on Discourse (1 week) (@ioana-chiorean)
- [ ] DATE - Deadline for answers in Discourse Q&A (@ioana-chiorean)
- [ ] DATE - Voting starts (1 week) (@ioana-chiorean)
- [ ] DATE - Voting closes (@ioana-chiorean)
- [ ] DATE - Wiki Pages are updated (@MichaelKohler)
- [ ] DATE - Onboarding begins (@couci)
- [ ] DATE - New Council members have write access to GitHub Reps repo (@MichaelKohler)
- [ ] DATE - New Council members are in the reps_leadership p.m.o group (@couci)
- [ ] DATE - New Council members are in the Matrix channel (@couci)
- [ ] DATE - New Council members are in the reps-council Google Group to have access for documents (@couci)
- [ ] DATE - New Council members have access to Slack (@couci)
- [ ] DATE - Onboarding is done and new Council is operational - new council members have confirmed they all have access to everything (@couci)
- [ ] DATE - Outgoing Council members are removed from Matrix channel (@couci)
- [ ] DATE - Outgoing Council members are removed from reps_leadership (@couci)
- [ ] DATE - Outgoing Council members are removed from reps-council Google group (@couci)
- [ ] DATE - Community Portal is updated with new Council members in Council group (@couci)
- [ ] DATE - Blog announcement for new members + outgoing members is published (@couci)
- [ ] DATE - Mozilla Leadership Page is updated (@MichaelKohler)