Vote.Eden.Lead RFP Final Analysis

This is the final analysis with links to the Eden Election documentation.

Eden Elections

Feedback & Analysis

The initial post-mortem analysis can be found here

Running Future Elections

There has been an ongoing discussion about election costs. The 3 official eden elections have been run by various teams to date.

Election I

The first election was run by the fractally(clarion) team as they built the first version of the election software we use today. I’m not sure if there were specific charges levied to operate and run the first eden election, but the team was paid to develop the software, and those costs may have been included in the price.

Election II

The second eden election was run by the EOS Support team.

Election III

The third eden election was run by Agenix, LLC as part of its winning bid for the Vote.Eden.Lead RFP.

Observations

Each of the prior 3 elections involved work beyond simply running the election on Election day. These teams were dealing with software that is by no means mature yet and undergoing various transitions.

For Example: Election documentation was still not finalized and refined prior to the start of the third eden election. It was included as part of the Vote.Eden.Lead RFP that documentation is to be finalized and refined.

So costs to this point have not been limited to the simple running of an election and therefore are not indicative of what we should expect when it comes to future elections.

Election Promotion & Support: What does it entail and do we need it?

One of the elements which have contributed to the cost of the first three eden elections has been the additional support required to pull off a smooth and successful election. The initial election was new to so many people that it required a lot of hand-holding to help members navigate the election process itself and the new election portal software.

With each subsequent election, it seems to require less support as eden members are now mostly familiar with the election process and the election portal software. It’s worth noting that should we dramatically change any part of the process or the software, we can expect to require additional support.

There have also been efforts to promote the elections in order to try and generate as much attendance as possible. Thus far this hasn’t seemed to have moved the needle much as each of the three official elections and the two prior test elections have had about 64–70 attendees. It’s hard to know if attendance would have been even worse without the promotional efforts or if a different promotional strategy can be more effective.

The last election did show a need to remind the community they must sign up for the election at least 24 hours prior to the official election start time. We did have probably 5 -6 members unable to attend because of this issue and there certainly could have been more who didn’t speak up.

What does it take to simply “run” and election?

1. Start the election seed 24 hours prior to the official election start time
2. Prepare and add the main room zoom link to the pinned Telegram post.
3. Host the main room zoom meeting on election day.
4. Provide election day support approximately 2 hours prior to the start of the election through the end of the final sortition.(approx. 6 hours total)

The last election was run by an “MC” in the main zoom room and a technical associate who triggered the smart contract actions and was available in the event of any unforeseen technical difficulties plus a single additional support person. They did receive support from the fractally team and the edenia team in the days leading up to the election.

I believe future elections can be run with a similar size team of:

Main Zoom Room MC

• This is ideally someone with a deeper knowledge of the eden election process so they can offer assistance to any new members who might be attending for their first time or who may not have attended an election in a long time.
• Elections have happened consistently on Saturdays, so some consideration should be given to this in the compensation as well as the fact that this person cannot attend the election.
• Cost — $500

Technical Associate

• This must be someone with deep technical knowledge of eosio smart contracts in the event of an emergency in my opinion. It may never happen, but if something goes haywire, we’ll want someone who can at lest figure out what has gone wrong.
• This role is really behind the scenes and if there are no issues, requires very little time commitment. The cost is in having them on standby for election day.
• Cost — $500

Total Election Cost — $1000

Recommendations:

We need to improve election incentives and/or add penalties for not attending.

1. If we want to increase attendance in future elections I don’t think increased or additional promotional efforts will make much of a difference.
2. Right now there is simply no penalty if an eden member chooses not to attend and the only incentives are for those who seek to be candidates or others who simply do so to support eden for their own reasons.

Elections can be run at a much lower cost going forward.

1. So long as there are no major changes in the election process or software, the level of support required should be minimal and mostly handled by experienced eden members assisting new members.

Documentation:

Information from Eden Notion has been put into a single “source of truth” document and cleaned up/edited accordingly. Additional information has been added as needed including a “manual” version of the election process that does not require custom software. This now makes available a document that can be stored publicly and made available to anyone who wants to run an election. Eden Election Document

Nothing wrong with the Eden Notion, but it’s nice to have additional options for people who may just want to quickly download and possibly print something easily.

Additional Notes:

We should probably examine this section of the Notion: Eden Mechanics There is old, out-dated information there which could be confusing to people.