The current moderator Vince Coen has in accordance with the rules of the echo
announced that there will be a moderator election for FIDO_SYSOP and announced
it as such in this conference.
 
The Election Coordinator is Ward Dossche of 2:292/854. The Verifying Officer is
 Ben Ritchey of 1:393/68.
 
Time frame of the election:
 
Note that in order to keep date confusion to a minimum all dates are shown in
*nix and some European country formats, e.g., ccyy.mm.dd hh:mm:ss - (hh is in
the 24 hour clock format, cc = century).
 
UTC is the official replacement name for GMT & means exactly the same.
 
* From now, until 2018.12.01 23:59 UTC: 
Submission of candidacies and debate.
 
* 2018.12.02 00:00 UTC through 2018.12.08 23:59 UTC: 
Voting.
 
* 2018.12.09 00:00 UTC: 
Announcement of preliminary results.
 
* 2018.12.09 00:00 UTC through 2018.12.15 23:59 UTC: 
Filing protests/complaints, and resolution of these by the Election
Coordinator.
 
* 2018.12.16 12:00 UTC: 
Appointment of the winner of this election as FIDO_SYSOP's moderator for a
period of two years (24 months), after confirmation by the Verifying Officer.
 
Eligibility to be a candidate and to vote:
 
Candidates must announce their candidacy themselves by placing a message in
this echo addressed to "Election Coordinator" with subject "Candidate". This
message must arrive at the system of the Election Coordinator before the 
deadline of Saturday December 1st at 23:59:59 UTC.  The sending of such an
announcement direct, or as close as you can get, to Ward Dossche at 2:292/854
and to Ben Ritchey at 1:393/68 as a back up is recommended. The same applies to
 voting, see below.
 
Candidates and voters must be listed as a sysop in the Fidonet NODELIST.327 of
Friday November 23rd as issued by, or on behalf of their ZC. Other types of
nodelist files will not be considered.
 
The address used in the echo and netmails for both purposes (announcing the
candidacy and voting), must be one that is in the specified nodelist. No point
addresses will be accepted.
 
Candidates may not be identified by node numbers associated with a "Down",
"Hold", "Zone", "Region", "Hub" or "Host" entry. For example if an RC wishes to
 be a candidate, s/he must use his/her regular node number and not the
"/0"-number and signed by their known name as in the nodelist. 
 
"Pvt"-nodes are allowed as long as they are listed with verifiable contact
information.
 
Nodes without verifiable listed contact information, are excluded.
 
The election coordinator will acknowledge the candidacy with a message in the
echo after verifying their status within the nodelist. The Verifying Officer
will do so likewise after that for the purposes of verification.
 
Announcement of candidates by third parties will be disregarded.
 
Candidates are encouraged to post an "election platform", stating who they are,
 what they propose for the echo's future and why they think they will be up to
the job.
 
Candidates will use their real name as listed in the nodelist, handles or
aliases will not be validated / accepted.
 
If there is no candidate on 2018.12.01 23:59 UTC, the election terminates
without a vote and the existing moderator is confirmed as the moderator for the
 next term of two years.
 
If there is only one candidate, the election terminates without a vote and that
 person is confirmed as the moderator for the two year term.
 
If there is more than one candidate, the election proceeds. 
 
Eligibility to vote:
 
Simple, see rules for being a  candidate.
 
Voting procedure:
 
Voting is confidential.
 
A vote is cast by sending two netmails, one to the "Election Coordinator" at
2:292/854, and a copy must be sent to the "Verifying Officer" at 1:393/68.
 
The body of the netmail must contain the name of the candidate of choice and a
password or pass phrase. Please use the spelling for the name as listed in the
nodelist.
 
When possible do not use routed netmail, but preferably use direct mail only.
Make certain the mail arrives at both the Election Coordinator's and the
Verifying Officer's systems before the deadline. The time stamp of the Election
 Coordinator's tosser will be the deciding factor. Don't forget the system is
in Europe and will enforce UTC times.
 
The election Coordinator will send a copy of the vote to the Verifying Officer
to confirm that both system are seeing the same level of votes for each
candidate.
 
The Election Coordinator will acknowledge reception of the vote by netmail to
the voter.
 
A vote cast is a vote cast. No second thoughts. 
 
Every eligible individual sysop is allowed one vote only.
 
After the voting is closed, the Election Coordinator will publish a list of the
 passwords that were received for each candidate. The names of the voters will
remain confidential. 
 
The Verifying Officer will confirm the results, or publish a correction within
three days of the election end date.
 
 
Submission of protests: 
 
A protest can only be filed by an individual eligible to vote and that has done
 so.
 
Send a preferably direct netmail to both "Election Coordinator" at 2:292/854
and to "Verifying Officer" at 1:393/68 describing your grievances.
 
The Election Coordinator will examine the complaint and will rule on it, with
the participation of the Verifying Officer.
 
If the protest is rejected, the election proceeds along its time line without
any further action.
 
If the protest is accepted, the tally of the votes will be modified.
 
If, as a result of the protest, the number of candidates is reduced to one,
then the election ends and the remaining candidate will be confirmed as the new
 moderator.
 
If as a result of the protest, the number of candidates is reduced to zero,
then the outgoing moderator Vince Coen is confirmed for another term of two
years.
 
 
Tiebreaker:
 
If after counting the votes, the result is tied between 2 or more candidates
then there will be a run off vote with the process starting again with
candidates with a lower vote count dropping out of the election.
 
Ward Dossche                      Ben Ritchie
Election Coordinator              Vote Verifier

--- D'Bridge 3.99 SR33
 * Origin: If there's an elephant in the room, introduce him (2:292/854)