Why are we requiring a Drupal Association membership to vote in Drupal Association elections?

Several Drupal contributors voiced concerns regarding the process changes we announced for the 2020 Drupal Association Board Election. While the election website presented the result of a May resolution regarding who may vote in our elections, we failed to communicate in advance our rationale for our goals in making such a change. That understandably left some with questions that we hope to address in this post.

The primary change at issue is the new requirement for people who vote in Drupal Association elections to hold Drupal Association memberships. (Previously, voters were required instead to have logged in to a drupal.org user account in the year prior to the current round of nominations.) While maintaining an active membership has long been a requirement for board members, we decided that it should also be required of those who vote for the two community representatives on the board.

We did two things to ensure the change continued to prioritize inclusion in the voting process. First, rather than determining eligibility based on a voter’s status at the opening of nominations, we chose to determine eligibility on the day before the election itself. Second, understanding an extra expense may not be possible for some who desired to participate in the election, we made it possible for anyone to privately request a free membership in the Drupal Association in advance of the election.

The change ultimately reflects our belief that it’s good for Drupal for more people to become more engaged with the Drupal Association in its mission to build, secure, and promote Drupal. It is good for the Association to have a broad base of engaged members. From organizing DrupalCon to maintaining drupal.org, the work of the Association enables thousands of users to contribute to the project daily from all over the world.

As these elections give the community an opportunity to influence the work of the Association via the deliberations of its board, we considered it important that people who desired such influence should make a minimal commitment of an active Drupal Association membership. Our hope is that all such members then further engage with us through investments of their time, talents, and resources in our shared goal of growing Drupal.

It’s clear we should have done more to communicate the changes we were introducing and why prior to the opening of nominations. There are human, if unsatisfying, reasons we neglected to do so - the primary one being the demands the pandemic and ensuing pivot to DrupalCon Global placed on everyone’s attention, energy, and time. In our discussions to prepare and approve this change, we should have considered how to engage the community and communicate the change more proactively. We’re sorry we didn’t.

That said, the unanimous nature of the vote reflects the fact that neither the discussion nor the final resolution were controversial to the board, including to members who were previously elected or are currently serving as community representatives. Drupal users have always had to qualify to vote, and we’re confident that everyone who wants to can still participate in the current and future elections.

We’re excited to see who steps up in this election, and we look forward to having their voice at future meetings as we consider how the Drupal Association can work even better to build, secure, and promote Drupal.

Adam Goodman

Chair, Board of Directors