As Kubernetes now has access to self-hosted preference election software, we can host any number of elections for community groups, as they need them.
Any "Kubernetes team" can request an election. This includes SIGs, Working Groups, operational teams like Release Engineering or Enhancements, Subprojects, and even wholly subsidiary projects like Prow and ClusterAPI. Basically, if your group is all Kubernetes contributors, you can ask for an election.
This does not include CNCF projects that are not components of Kubernetes and subject to Kubernetes governance. At some point, the CNCF may offer elections-as-a-service for those other projects.
Kubernetes uses an election tool called Elekto, an instance of which is hosted at elections.k8s.io. Your team's election gets added as metadata to the kubernetes/community repository, and that automatically causes an election to appear in the app.
You assign some of your team to be election administrators, and they are in charge of running the election. You also assemble and supply a list of GithubIDs for valid voters in the election, and the dates that candidate statements are due, followed by when voting opens and closes. Candidates join the election by publishing candidate profiles to your election directory.
Depending on availability and the nature of your election, Contributor Comms may help publicize your election and remind voters of deadlines. Otherwise, you will do this.
Once voting has closed, one of your election administrators can calculate the result of the election, and publish it either through the app or directly to your team's channel or mailing list.
If you are not already familiar with Elekto, you should request an election by filing an election request issue. Please fill out all of the information in the template; it's required for the election.
A member of the Elections Subproject will contact you and help you through setting up the election metadata. Please allow at least a week before your election needs to start.
If you are familiar with Elekto from prior elections, then you may create your own metadata files and submit your election as a pull request, which will make it happen faster.
Each team election goes in its own folder in the kubernetes/community repo,
using the path elections/teams/team-name/election-name,
e.g. elections/teams/clusterapi/leads-2022. This folder should then have
the following files in it, with complete contents. See the
Elekto administration docs for more details.
- election.yaml file defining the election
- election-desc.md file with a text description of the election
- voters.yaml with the initial list of voters
The easiest path is to copy these files from another election and then modify them. The above will require you to have already decided your list of Election Admins and the dates for your election.
A member of the Elections Subproject will then review your PR, offer any required data corrections, and approve it.
- Candidates do not have to be people; sometimes you may want to run an "election" between development alternatives or graphic design options. However, consider doing a survey for those instead.
- Voters and Admins do not have to be Kubernetes Org Members.
They do have to have GitHub IDs.