FAmSCo election rules

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Fedora Ambassadors Steering Committee Election Rules

FAmSCo elections help to keep the leadership of the project in touch with the ambassadors who make up the project.

Schedule

FAmSCo elections will be held twice a year, as part of the Fedora Project combined election process.

Seats on FAmSCo

There are 7 seats on FAmSCo. When for whatever reason all seats are up for election, the 4 highest vote-getters will serve two releases and the lowest 3 vote-getters will serve 1 release. After that, the seats up for election will alternate based on the seats up for election in the prior election, so usually 3 or 4 seats will be open at each election.

Candidates

Candidates must be member of the ambassadors group in the Fedora Accounts System. This helps to ensure FAmSCo members have some experience with the processes of Fedora but still allows relatively new contributors to sit on FAmSCo and bring fresh ideas to the table.

Candidates must self nominate at least three days before the election opens by writing their information onto the wiki (Fedora account, email and irc nick, statement of past contributions and what they hope to accomplish while a member of FAmSCo.) In addition, candidates must not be a citizen of an export-restricted country (see Legal/Export#Embargoed_Destinations for the list of export restricted countries).

In order to hold an election, a minimum number of candidates are necessary. This will be the number of open seats + 25%. If there are 4 seats available, there will need to be at least 5 candidates. If not enough candidates have signed up by the deadline, the election may be delayed waiting for more candidates to appear, in coordination with the schedule for combined Fedora elections. If there are still not enough candidates, the candidates who are present will be voted upon (or merely confirmed if there are less candidates than open seats.) If FAmSCo does not have the full number of seats filled at this point, please see Filling Vacant Seats below.

Voters

Any person in the Fedora Account System who has completed the Contributor License Agreement and is member of at least one other group - including, but not limited to the group of ambassadors - is eligible to vote in the FAmSCo elections.

Members

Members of FAmSCo are elected for a term of two (2) major releases of Fedora (except in the case where for whatever reason all seats need to be filled; in that case, see above). However, a FAmSCo member may resign his/her seat at any time for any reason by notifying the rest of the committee as well as the Fedora Ambassadors community of their decision.

In the event of repeated absence without contact, or other serious misconduct or negligence, a FAmSCo member may be subject to removal. Before any other process occurs, the FAmSCo member in question will be personally contacted by the FAmSCo Chair to try to resolve the situation. If this contact does not successfully resolve the situation, the FAmSCo member in question may be removed by unanimous vote of the other members of FAmSCo. Any resulting open seat will be filled as described in Filling Vacant Seats below. The term of the interim member will be the remainder of the original term for that seat.

Election of the Chairperson

Once an election is completed, the committee must elect a Chairperson. This must be done by no later than two weeks or two meetings that are held after the election. Until a new Chairperson is elected, the current chair will continue in that role. The FAmSCo Chairperson can only be removed from this position by an unanimous vote of the other FAmSCo members. If this happens, a new Chairperson must be elected within one week.

Appointment of Vice-Chairperson

No later than two weeks after election, the FAmSCo chairperson will appoint the Vice-Chairperson. The FAmSCo Vice-Chairperson can only be removed from this position by an unanimous vote of the other FAmSCo members. If this happens, a new Vice-Chairperson must be appointed within one week.

Filling Vacant Seats

If FAmSCo does not have all its seats filled due to members leaving or any other reason, the vacant seats will attempt to be filled by the following methods, starting from the first:

1. FAmSCo will ask community members they think would do a good job if they would be willing to hold the open seats. FAmSCo can, but is not obliged, consider runner-up candidates from the previous election who didn't have the opportunity to be on FAmSCo.
2. If those candidates have been exhausted or FAmSCo does not consider them eligible and the open seats are still not filled, FAmSCo will operate with less members until the next FAmSCo election.
3. If FAmSCo is not able to fulfill at least 5 seats out of 7, it will ask the Council to fulfill the vacant seats.

Voting System

The Fedora Elections Guide provides information about the voting system for all Fedora elections.

Notes

There are no term limits imposed by this policy. If FAmSCo chooses to impose term limits for its internal positions (Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson, etc.) those should be specified in the FAmSCo by-laws rather than this document.