No definitive winner in the Bitcoin Foundation election, Olivier Janssens leads

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Details: Category: News; Published: 21 February 2015; Hits: 2142

The Bitcoin Foundation Board of Directors elections have ended with none of the candidates reaching the 50% threshold.

The Bitcoin Foundation blog reports that a runoff will be held as none of the candidates has won the elections. The registration will be reopened for the runoff for any Bitcoin Foundation members who wish to vote.

Leading the polls is Olivier Janssens, who won 151 votes (46.7%), missing the majority by 4%. Three other top candidates that will participate in the runoff with Janssens are Jim Harper (41.2%), Bruce Fenton (30.9%), and Michael Perklin (30%). Cody Wilson, who had promised in January to dismantle the Foundation if elected, took the sixth place with 21.3%.

Janssens, a 35-year-old bitcoin entrepreneur, does not support the current Bitcoin Foundation policies. In his election program, posted on the Foundation forum in January, he protested against the Bitcoin Foundation's influence on the Core Development.

He claimed that the Bitcoin Foundation should be fully transparent and articulated the agenda which he will promote:

“That agenda should always have at its core 1) more decentralization 2) creating positive Bitcoin awareness and 3) removing any control over Bitcoin from the Bitcoin Foundation.”

A new runoff election has been announced, to be held from Tuesday, February 24, 2015 to Friday, February 27, 2015 at 11:59pm EST. The two winners will be announced on Saturday, February 28, 2015 if one of the candidates passes the 50% point this time.

Coinfox wrote about the issues surrounding the quorum of eligible members, only 20% of which registered to vote, earlier this week.

Bitcoin Foundation elections court controversy due to new pre-registration rule

The election of two new members of the Bitcoin Foundation’s Board of Directors turned problematic after only 20% of eligible members registered for the vote. Representatives of the Foundation state that this is enough for a quorum and note that they have warned eligible members about the upcoming elections at least three times.

Bitcoin Foundation members are currently voting to elect two new Directors. This time, there are 13 candidates on the ballot, each of whom hopes to take up one of the two positions.

The Bitcoin Foundation is a key structure of the bitcoin community that supports and develops the bitcoin core and works as a coordination hub for many smaller bitcoin groups around the world. The governing body of the Bitcoin Foundation is its Board of Directors that includes Individual and Industry members. Last year, two Individual board members – Jon Matonis and Gavin Andersen – left the board after they finished their terms. Now the Foundation is looking for their replacements.

This autumn, the Foundation passed a new rule that requires eligible members to register before the voting process. The aim of the rule was to stimulate voting activity: last winter, the Foundation struggled to reach the 50% quorum that was necessary for the election to be valid.

This year, the Foundation introduced pre-registration and lowered the quorum requirement to 20% of registered voters. Eligible members were notified by e-mail and could register through a dedicated webpage. Despite this fact, 80% of eligible members failed to register. As a result, only 20% of eligible electors (364 out of 2782) are participating in the process.

The Bitcoin Foundation published a blog post blaming their members for this failure. The organization says that it notified eligible members by e-mail at least three times and published information about the alterations to the elections system on its blog:

“Democracy is messy. The hard truth is that many people choose not to vote”

Brian Goss, who is overseeing the election process, has received only 6 official complaints so far. The elections are going forward. The Bitcoin Foundation reports that this time

“Within 24 hours of opening the polls on Friday, February 13, 2015, over 183 Bitcoin Foundation members voted, reaching quorum. Quorum is the minimum number a group needs in order to make the proceedings, whether it is a meeting or a vote, valid. At the time of this writing, 246 out of 364 eligible ballots have been cast"

The Bitcoin Foundation elections will finish on November 19th, 2015. The results will be announced on the Bitcoin Foundation blog.

Bloomberg lists reasons why Bitcoin Foundation might collapse

An article entitled “The Final Days of Bitcoin Foundation?” was published by Bloomberg, throwing light on the ups and downs the organisation faced throughout the years of its existence, and the troubles it currently goes through.

Crypto-anarchist offers to disband the Bitcoin Foundation

Cody Wilson, a candidate for the Bitcoin Foundation Board Election in 2015, has launched a campaign to dismantle the Foundation if elected. Wilson claims the Foundation should be “destroyed” for collaborating with authorities instead of promoting the revolutionary concepts of technological libertarianism.

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