Author: Jenny McDevitt

Now that the 2020 election is over, we’re happy to share with you our voter turnout statistics!

For the 2020 Election, we had 13,369 total eligible voters. Of those, 2858 voters cast a ballot, which represents 21.4% of the potential voters. Our voter turnout is lower than that of last year, which had a turnout of 22.5%. We also saw an increase in the number of ballots cast, from 2234 to 2858, which represents a 28% increase.

Elections is committed to continuing to reach out to our eligible members to encourage them to vote in elections. Whoever is elected to the Board of Directors can have an important influence on the long-term health of the OTW’s projects, and we want our members to have a say in that.

For those who might be interested in the number of votes each candidate received, please note that our election process is designed to elect an equal cohort of Board members in order to allow them to work well together, so we do not release that information. As a general rule, we also won’t disclose which of our unsuccessful candidates received the fewest votes, since we don’t want to discourage them from running again in the future when circumstances and member interest might be different.

Once again, a big thank you to everyone who participated at every stage of the election! We hope to see you at the virtual polls again next year.

The Elections Committee would like to thank all of our candidates for their hard work in this year’s election. With that, we are pleased to present the results of the 2020 Election.

The following candidates (in alphabetical order) have been officially elected to the Board of Directors:

• Alex Tischer
• Jess White
• Kati Eggert

The new members of the Board will formally begin their term overlap on October 1. We wish them well with their terms.

With that, the election season comes to a close. Thank you to everyone who got involved by spreading the word, asking the candidates questions, and, of course, voting! We look forward to seeing all of you again next year.

Candidates Announcement

The Organization for Transformative Works is pleased to announce the following candidates for the 2020 Election (in alphabetical order by given name):

• Alex Tischer
• Jess White
• Kati Eggert
• Nicole Abraham
• Tyme LaDow*
• Zoë Tucker

*July 26: Per an announcement, Tyme Ladow withdrew from the ballot.

Because we have 3 seats to be filled and 6 candidates, the 2020 election will be contested – that is, the members of the OTW will vote on which candidates fill the seats.

The Elections Committee is excited to introduce the candidates to all of the members of the OTW! Included in this post are links to short Bios and Platforms written by the candidates. This post also marks the beginning of our Q&A period, during which we invite the public to submit questions for the candidates. Additionally, we will be holding a series of live chats – dates and times for those are to be announced based on candidate availability. Information on the voting period and how to vote will also be posted shortly.

In the meantime, there is a timeline of Elections events available here for your reference. Read on to learn more about our candidates and how you can submit questions for them!

Platforms and Bios

We asked each candidate to provide us with a Bio that sums up their professional and fannish experience, as well as to write a Platform about their goals for their term on the Board by answering the following questions:

• Why did you decide to run for election to the Board?
• What skills and/or experience would you bring to the Board?
• Choose one or two goals for the OTW that are important to you and that you would be interested in working on during your term. Why do you value these goals? How would you work with others to achieve them?
• What is your experience with the OTW’s projects and how would you collaborate with the relevant committees to support and strengthen them? Try to include a range of projects, though feel free to emphasize particular ones you have experience with.
• How would you balance your Board work with other roles in the OTW, or how do you plan to hand over your current roles to focus on Board work?

You can read both the candidates’ answers to these questions and their bios by following the links below.

• Alex Tischer
• Jess White
• Kati Eggert
• Nicole Abraham
• Tyme LaDow
• Zoë Tucker

Question & Answer (Q&A)

Candidates will also answer questions from the public. Anyone may submit questions via the Elections form. Please submit all questions by 11:59pm UTC on June 29 (what time is that where I live?). All candidates will answer each question submitted, subject to the following restrictions:

• Questions can be a maximum of 50 words long.
• Questions must not be repeats of questions from the Platforms. This is to allow candidates to spend their time answering new questions.
• Similar questions will be grouped together so candidates don’t have to repeat themselves. Elections staff will decide which questions are similar enough to group.
• If you have a follow-up to a Platform question, please specifically mention that it is a follow-up so it isn’t treated as a repeat.

The posting date for answers will be chosen depending on the number of questions received. Posts will be spread out, arranged by topic, to make it easier for voters to read all the answers.