Some of you were interested in a release of statistics about the Election, especially regarding the number of votes each candidate has received. While we understand this request, due to election policies, we are unable to release specific vote counts for candidates. Our process is designed to elect an equal cohort of Board Members, to enable them to work together well. Therefore, we normally will not reveal which of the elected candidates received the most votes, and will simply announce who was elected. 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. In addition to that, we’re not allowed to disclose most of the information we acquire about our voters.
Due to recent events, we released the ranking information about this year’s candidates with permission from 5 of the 6 candidates (we did not ask Andrea Horbinski). However, as our goal is to promote an equal and harmonious Board of Directors, we do not intend to reveal this information in future elections unless a situation like the one we witnessed last weekend happens again.
For the 2015 Election, we had 7997 total eligible voters. 621 voters cast a ballot, which represents 7.8% of the potential voters.
Comparatively, the highest turnout rate was in 2011, when about 25% of members voted; we’re aware that this sharp rise was mostly due to widespread recognition of one of the candidates. We don’t have voter turnout information for 2010, only anecdotal statements that it was significantly lower than that.
We will continue to work on ways to better reach out to our eligible members to encourage them to vote in elections, since whoever is elected to the Board of Directors can have an important influence on the long-term health of the OTW’s projects.
2 thoughts to “Election Statistics for 2015”
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What I was interested in was voter participation, so thank you for providing that. The very low turn out is distressing.
What I’d also like to know: How many new members joined during the period of election promotion (from August 30th to the cut-off)? I would like to see something like:
membership before August 30th: number
membership at time of voting eligibility cut-off: number
number of new members who joined compared to same time period last year when there was no election
The number I’d like to have is the percentage of new members (joined August 30th and after) who voted compared to existing members. I’m sure that wasn’t tracked — I wouldn’t want it to be tracked — but having the other numbers would allow me to speculate. 😀
Thanks for your suggestion, Stewardess! We’ll take it under advisement, but I can’t promise anything. We have a lot to do before we can run another election, and we have limited resources in terms of trained personnel. We’re currently in the process of reviewing our tasks for next year and prioritizing the most urgent; I’ll add this to the agenda for discussion.
Best wishes,
briar_pipe
Elections Committee Chair