[GRASS-PSC] Notes on the GRASS PSC election 2026

Mon Nov 9 07:53:39 PST 2026

Hi Hernan,

I'm not part of the PSC but am in the mailing list for long time as it
was needed for something long time ago. But I don't mind that. I agree
with your opinion that e-mails work better than Discourse. And I had
the same as Linda and probably Helmut - the link ended up in my spam
folder. But I found it and supported the democracy.

po 9. 11. 2026 v 14:27 odesílatel Hernán De Angelis via grass-psc
<grass-psc at lists.osgeo.org> napsal:
>
> Hi Linda,
>
> I see. Helmut also told me about this. That's something we will have to look at. Perhaps nowadays many e-mail servers have very strict policies. The CRO address is aliased to my email and who knows, may be som e-mail servers now reject this.
>
> Thanks again
>
> Hernán
>
> Den 2026-11-09 kl. 14:16, skrev Linda Karlovská:
>
> Hello Hernán, thanks for the organization!
>
> I actually got only one email from you - the one without the link to the voting. I checked my spam folder and found that the first email with the link had dropped there.
>
> Seems like technology always fails in one way or another, one always has to be on guard :-)
>
> Linda
>
>
>
>
> ---------- Původní e‑mail ----------
> Od: Helmut Kudrnovsky via grass-psc <grass-psc at lists.osgeo.org>
> Komu: GRASS-PSC <grass-psc at lists.osgeo.org>, Hernán De Angelis <variablestarlight at gmail.com>
> Datum: 9. 11. 2026 13:32:11
> Předmět: Re: [GRASS-PSC] Notes on the GRASS PSC election 2026
>
> Thanks for the results, German!
>
> Though I can't remember that I've got an email link for the voting system itself.
>
> I'm travelling at the moment, so I could missed something...
>
> Kind regards
> Helmut
>
> .... . .__.. .__.. ..
> helmut kudrnovsky
>
>
> Am 09.11.26, 12:13 schrieb "Hernán De Angelis via grass-psc" <grass-psc at lists.osgeo.org>:
>
> Dear PSC members, old & new
>
> Elections are now finished. I already posted the results. Here come some notes I believe are important to remember about this election.
>
> Best
>
> Hernán
>
>
>
> Communication
>
> In this election, communication with the community was primarily done through Discourse because we do not have general mailing lists anymore (only one for the PSC). I get the impression that not many people read these forums, as measured by the read count (however reliable this might be) and the responses that these messages and announcements triggered.
>
> I sent reminders of important actions as direct e-mails to eligible voters. This was much more effective than posting in the forums, as measured by the number of responses (nominations, votes, replies). Another benefit was the detection of invalid addresses and direct feedback from people who do not wish to participate. This is important because the voting process relies on e-mail and from previous experience I know that some people may get surprised by an invitation to vote. By removing these addresses early-on we focused our efforts to the group currently interested in the project.
>
> I suggest that in the next election, posting in the forums is complemented with direct e-mails to call the attention of the community to events that require action, like nominating and voting.
>
> The announcement of the start of election was also published in GitHub Discussions as "Announcement" with the aim of increasing visibility among active contributors. It is difficult to assess how effective this was in terms of catalyzing participation. However, it is a simple action with little cost, so I suggest we also do this in the next election.
>
>
>
> List of voters
>
> We started with a raw list of 271 eligible voters. After completing some entries, removing incomplete ones, invalid addresses, and people who expressed the wish not to participate anymore, we were left with a curated list of 206 eligible voters to start with. As a result of this and similar filtering in previous elections, I have a list of names and addresses to remove or change from any new preliminary list of voters in the next election.
>
> It has been suggested to limit voter eligibility to people who have contributed within a given time frame before the election. This may be a question the PSC may want to discuss.
>
>
>
> Election statistics
>
> A total of 79 out of the 206 eligible voters participated in the election, a participation of 38%. Of these, 58 were complete responses (voters chose 5 candidates out of 8), 1 was a partial response (voter gave 2 definite votes for 2 different candidates), and 20 were null votes (voters chose 0 candidates out of 8). Considering only the 58 complete votes, the participation was 28%. The remaining 127 eligible voters did not to participate (62%).
>
> We had a higher number of registered voters than in 2024 (206 vs 146), practically the same vote count (58 vs 59 complete votes, 79 vs 82 for all votes), but a lower participation (28% vs 40% for complete votes, 38% vs 56% for all votes) and a much higher number of non-participants (127 vs 64, or 62% vs 44%). In both this election and the previous one, the total number of registered voters, the vote count, and participation were all lower than in 2020. See table.
>
> Election | Registered voters | Voted (complete) | Participation (complete) | Voted (null, incomplete) | Participation (null, incomplete) | Voted (total)    Participation (total) | Did not vote | Rate
> 2026 | 206 | 58 | 28 % | 21 | 10 % |  79 | 38 % | 127 | 62 %
> 2024 | 146 | 59 | 40 % | 23 | 16 % |  82 | 56 % |  64 | 44 %
> 2020 | 245 | 98 | 40 % | 67 | 27 % | 165 | 67 % |  80 | 33 %
>
>
>
>
> Null and incomplete votes
>
> As in previous elections, we had once more a number of null and incomplete votes and again I do not understand why. We have also discussed this before.
>
> The survey was explicitly set to enable both a minimum and a maximum of 5 responses, meaning that a voter had to select exactly 5 out of 8 candidates. One possible explanation for the null votes is that the system possibly does not let voters to open the link more than once. If a voter opened the link, had a quick look, and then closed the page without sending the vote, then it may register as null. In order to reduce the impact of this potential issue I added a note in the e-mail templates encouraging them to open the link only once when they vote.
>
> On the other hand, I do not have an explanation for how a person could submit an incomplete vote for only two candidates when the system had an explicit minimum of 5.
>
> Everything seemed normal and uncomplicated when I voted. Did any of you experience problems? In that case I am happy to hear your perspective.
>
>
>
> Closing comments
>
> Apart from the minor problem of null and incomplete votes, I believe we had a fairly smooth process this time, from the initial production of a list of voters to the announcement of the results. Thanks to Vero and the PSC members that contributed in various stages.
>
> Once more, I had a fun time contributing to the GRASS project as CRO. Thanks to the PSC and the community for the trust you put on me.
>
>
>
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