This repository contains OpenStack Elections reference documents and tooling to run elections.

Election Process

PTL Elections

Selecting Election Dates

Things to keep in mind when selecting election dates:

• Election Dates must be as per the TC charter which is "The election is held no later than 3 weeks prior to each cycle final release date(on or before ‘R-3’ week)"
• At least 48 hours in between email deadline and poll start
• Consider extra-atcs approval deadlines
• Allow at least a week for nomination period

tox -evenv -- setup-election-config can be used to pick some possible dates that need to be checked by the election officials and TC. Once these dates are confirmed/merged election officials can create a change against the releases repo to include these dates in the development schedule. A helper tool tox -evenv -- update-releases-calendar will generate this change, but needs to be verified before publishing

Preparation

As early as possible but at least a month before election starts:

• Edit elections details (timeline, cycle timeframe):
  • edit configuration.yaml
• Prepare new election, e.g.:
  • tox -evenv -- create-directories
• Commit to update website
• Update Release Schedule

A couple of weeks before election starts:

• Send PTL Election Season email
  • tox -e venv -- template-emails election_season

PTL Candidacy Round

When PTL Candidacy start:

• Send PTL Nominations Kickoff email
  • tox -e venv -- template-emails nominations_kickoff

During the PTL Candidacy round:

• Validate candidacy, e.g.:
  • tox -evenv -- check-all-candidacies, or
  • tox -evenv -- ci-check-all-candidate-files candidates/release/project/candidates, or
  • tox -evenv -- check-candidacy change_id
• To +2 a candidate:
  • check commit link is indeed valid
  • check filename is email address
  • cursory check the candidacy statement
• To +Workflow, checks the previous +2 details, find another commits using --limit 5 (optional)
• Check candidate list and fix badly generated names through changes to the exception.txt file or requesting the candidate to update their OSF member profile.

Once the email deadline is reached:

• Ask the TC chair to tag the governance repository
• Generate the electorate rolls. This generates the rolls for all project teams even if they aren't going to hold an election.
  • tox -evenv -- generate-rolls

A couple of days before the candidacy submission ends:

• Render statistics and send Motivation call for PTL candidacy round, e.g.:
  • tox -evenv -- render-statistics
• Send PTL Nominations Last Days email:
  • tox -e venv -- template-emails nominations_last_days

When PTL Candidacy submission ends:

• Send PTL Nominations End email
  • tox -e venv -- template-emails end_nominations
• When the tag is available, generate ATC rolls, e.g.:
  • tox -evenv -- generate-rolls
  • Compare ATC rolls with at least one other election official

PTL Election Round

When PTL Election begins:

• Send email to eligible electorates to opt in to CIVS voting system using their Gerrit email address in https://civs1.civs.us/cgi-bin/opt_in.pl
• Create CIVS page
• Upload rolls
  • CIVS has a maximum number of electorate emails you can upload at a time without crashing, limit to 500 at a time
• Send PTL Voting Kickoff email
  • tox -e venv -- template-emails voting_kickoff

A couple of days before the PTL Election ends:

• Send PTL Voting Last Days email
  • tox -e venv -- template-emails voting_last_days

When PTL Election ends:

• Close the election and update the results:
  • tox -evenv -- close-election --round ptl
  • edit doc/sources/results/release/ptl.yaml and set election winners to true
  • NOTE: We no longer need document TC-APPOINTMENT or LEADERLESS as the update-governance step will communicate that to the TC and the process in that repo will set the project leader.
• Commit the change and review the results
• Send PTL Results email
  • This is doc/source/results/release/announce_ptl.rst generated by building the docs with tox -e docs after doc/source/results/release/ptl.yaml has been created and updated
• Update governance repo:
  • tox -e venv update-governance -- --governance-repo ../governance/

TC Elections

Selecting Election Dates

Things to keep in mind when selecting election dates:

• Election Dates must be as per the TC charter which is "The election is held no earlier than 6 weeks and no later than 4 weeks prior to each cycle final release date (between ‘R-6’ and ‘R-4’ week)"
• Allow for at least 48 hours between email deadline and polling beginning
• Allow at least a week for nomination and campaign periods

setup-election-config can be used to pick some obvous dates that need to be checked by the election officials and TC

Preparation

As early as possible but at least a month before election starts:

• Edit elections details (timeline, cycle timeframe):
  • edit configuration.yaml
• Commit to update website
• Update Release Schedule

A couple of weeks before election starts:

• Send TC Election Season email
  • tox -e venv -- template-emails election_season

TC Candidacy Round

When TC Candidacy starts:

• Send TC Nominations Kickoff email
  • tox -e venv -- template-emails nominations_kickoff

During the TC Candidacy round:

• To +2 a candidate:
  • check candidate profile using https://www.openstack.org/community/members/
  • check filename is email address
  • cursory check the candidacy statement
• To +Workflow, check the previous +2 details

A couple of days before the candidacy submission ends:

• Send TC Nominations Last Days email
  • tox -e venv -- template-emails nominations_last_days

When TC Candidacy submission ends:

• Send TC End Nominations email
  • tox -e venv -- template-emails end_nominations

Once the email deadline is reached:

• Ask the TC chair to tag the governance repository
• Generate the electorate rolls.
  • tox -evenv -- generate-rolls

TC Campaigning

The TC election includes a period after the candidates are defined but before the election, for candidates to answer questions from the community. Open this with:

• tox -e venv -- template-emails campaigning_kickoff

TC Election Round

Before TC Election begins:

• Send email to eligible electorates to opt in to CIVS voting system using their Gerrit email address in https://civs1.civs.us/cgi-bin/opt_in.pl
• Create CIVS page

  • Title the poll: $RELEASE Technical Committee Election Poll

  • Enable detailed ballot reporting

  • Send to other officials to verify

    • Check number of seats
    • Check closing date

When TC Election begins:

• Upload rolls
  • CIVS has a maximum number of electorate emails you can upload at a time without crashing, limit to 500 at a time* Send TC Voting Kickoff email
  • tox -e venv -- template-emails voting_kickoff

A couple of days before the TC Election ends:

• Send TC Voting Last Days email
  • tox -e venv -- template-emails voting_last_days

When TC Election ends:

• Close the election
• Run: tox -e venv -- close-election --round tc
  • edit doc/source/results/release/tc.yaml setting the winners to true
  • Commit change and push review
• Send TC Results email
  • This is doc/source/results/release/announce_tc.rst generated by building the docs with tox -e docs after doc/source/results/release/tc.yaml has been created and updated
• Update reference/members in governance repository
  • Add new members
  • Remove chair and vice-chair from file
  • Commit change and push review
• Update tc-election-summary.py with election statistics
• Optionally send TC Election Statistics email