Wikimedia Foundation elections/2024/Shortlisting process

In the 2024 election, there will be four open seats. In a previous cycle when there were four open seats, there was an overwhelming number of candidates for voters to review. The Elections Committee and Board of Trustees determined 12 candidates would be a reasonable number for voters to review. If there are more than 15 eligible candidates as determined by the Elections Committee, a shortlisting process will occur. The process will aim to shortlist 12 candidates, and these 12 candidates will be running in the community voting phase. If there are 15 or fewer candidates, there will be no shortlisting process. The process would be a lot of work for Affiliates only to eliminate three or fewer candidates for community voting round.

Shortlisting protocol

If there is a shortlisting process, the following process will be followed:

• Each Affiliates will be asked to designate 1 (one) representative that will represent them in the shortlisting process. The representative could be the default contact point for that Affiliate or anyone else acting in official capacity representing the Affiliate. The support team will send a message to all Affiliates to ask them to name their representative.
• The Affiliate representatives will select up to 12 (twelve) from all candidates determined eligible by the Elections Committee in a voting platform designated by the Elections Committee. Their decision should be based on the candidates’ alignment with the Board’s requirements and desired criteria for candidates.

The Elections Committee will send the survey link via email to the identified representative by June 2, 2024. The shortlisting process will run from June 3, 2024 at 00:01 UTC to June 28, 2024 at 23:59 UTC.

The survey will ask the following questions:

• Name or username of the representative
• Please select up to 12 candidates that your Affiliate decided to be most aligned with the Board’s requirements and desired criteria
  • Note: there will be a list of all the eligible candidates, and the affiliate representative will be able to select a maximum of 12 candidates; these candidates are not ranked
• Please share documentation on the affiliate’s decision-making process to arrive at this selection
• Comment (if there is anything else not covered by this form)

The results of the shortlisting process will be announced in the manner described below, to balance the commitment for public transparency and considerations about improper influencing of the community vote:

• After the shortlisting process concludes, the 12 candidates who receive the highest number of votes will be announced by the Elections Committee, but without publicly mentioning their ranking.
• After the community voting, the data about how many Affiliates participated in the shortlisting process and for which candidates they voted for will be shared publicly.