Fellowship elections participation

[Daniel Pocock]

On 25/04/17 13:00, Erik Albers wrote:
> Hi list,
> 
> the Fellowship elections 2017 are over and the winner is Daniel Pocock.
> 
> 	https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170425-01
> 
> I like to thank all candidates for bringing life into this years election and
> every voter for rewarding our candidates' activities by participating in the
> elections.
> 


A big thanks to all those people who voted and the other candidates and
Erik for organizing this process.  I hope I'll be able to make a
positive contribution.

> Unfortunately, we only had a participation of around 17 % which seems to be
> the lowest participation since we record participation (2014). Many of the
> list subscribers here have had the possibility to vote, so I like to ask for
> explanations and possibilities how we can raise participation?
> 
> The low amount of participation leaves me in particular wondering as this year
> we had 7 candidates, each of them with a short representation in out wiki [1],
> public hustings [2] and a reminder three days before the end of elections.
> 
> However, former elections with only one (!) candidate and without reminders
> and no public hustings (2016 and 2014) have had more participation ...
> 
> Why is this? Please help us to understand what FSFE can do to make the
> electiosn more appealing or raise participation?
> Or help us to understand what was the reason that this year there was such a
> low amount of participation?
> 

Maybe fatigue with a long campaign and an increasing volume of email in
general?  The original email about the elections was in January but
voting didn't start until April.  By that stage, maybe some people had
tuned out from the emails.

Developer and volunteer burn out is one thing I would be keen to hear
more about during my term in this role.  Email is only one part of the
problem and a strong community (with a real world presence) can be part
of the solution.

Regards,

Daniel