What gives?
So we have a vote, which ends today. One very confusing ballot was
mailed out, despite the claim on that ballot that another one would
follow. Despite repeated pleas for a clearer ballot, the secretary
has said nothing about what he will do towards making an easier to
follow one, nor has he sent out the promised second ballot.
Branden Robinson has made a claim that the ballot for this vote should
be withdrawn, because the time limit specified in the Constitution for
action had passed before the Secretary acted to issue the ballot. The
secretary has not made ANY comment about this, despite the fact that
it would seem to be an urgent matter.
I had the vague hope that there had been a second ballot mailed out,
given that the vote expires today, and that I had somehow missed it or
inadvertantly deleted it. I couldn't find any indication from the
archives on lists.debian.org of such a second ballot. In a faint
hope, I sent mail to ballot@vote.debian.org, as the web site indicates
one should do, but have not received any response.
Meanwhile, the web site information at www.debian.org/vote has been
hopelessly out of date for nearly the entire process; it still lists
the resolution as "Waiting for Sponsors".
The entire process has been handled in an exceedingly poor manner.
I'm not talking about the substantive question of interpretation of
the constitution, here, I'm talking about the nuts and bolts handling
of ballots and announcements and keeping people informed about what
exactly the status is, how to vote, and so forth.
I feel like we have a person listed as "Project Secretary", but no
actual person actually doing much towards that job. It's not a huge
job, but it's very important that it be done in a manner that inspires
confidence in the fairness and legitimacy of the process, and what's
happening here is that there is a stone wall of silence (or maybe it's
inattention), a lot of confusion, a very important issue going to vote
on a very confusing ballot, a claim that the vote itself is invalid
due to expiration of a time limit, and several other problems.
We need a Project Secretary who keeps up with the job, or asks the
Technical Committee Chair to step in. This is a very important job,
and it needs to get done, with a speed and efficiency that inspires
confidence.
Thomas
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