Phase1 of the Board Election process comes to a close at 1200 UTC on 09 October 2008.  That means after that time there will be no additional people eligible to vote for candidates.  Franchise votes are possibly the least understood aspect of the election process, this is even after the best efforts of the Election Committee and Candidates.  No one is to blame, it’s just fact.

So let me try once more to explain what the Franchise voting is all about.  In a nutshell an openSUSE Member has the ability to grant a registered user, but not member, the priveledge to vote in the upcoming Board Election.  Why? Simplisticly it’s to get more voters/users/contributors involved in influencing how the openSUSE project progresses.  There are 2831 registered users now, but only 212 Members – so according to my bad maths that makes about 7.5% eligable to vote. That to me isn’t entirely representative of the community, so in comes the Franchise vote, we members have the ability to increase that voting percentage to 15%.  The catch is that the users have to have registered prior to 01 September 2008.

So how do users get the franchise? Simplist way is ask a member 🙂  Members will not be able to grant users a franchise if they have not registered prior to 01Sept08 so dont try and bluff, the system knows 😉  How do you find out who is a member? Simple, go to users.opensuse.org and “Browse Members“.  From there you can get contact details for IRC nicks, etc and try and convince them that you are worthy.

So please if you haven’t done so, go and get your franchise and help influence openSUSE.  For members that haven’t given out their franchise you can “Browse Users” and find someone you recognise and ask them if they would like a franchise vote.  People this is YOUR Board that is being voted in, if you don’t speak up now then you’ll loose your voice until the next election!