Oh, I didn’t want to imply any intentional wrongdoing. I simply suggested that stepping down in such situation might be the best way to acknowledge the less than ideal situation and prevent the possible argument that might drag for a long time.

Ondrej

On Sat, Dec 16, 2023, at 23:22, Martin Winter wrote:
Ondrej,

On Sat, Dec 16, 2023 at 9:31 PM Ondřej Surý <ondrej@dns.rocks> wrote:
> The way I read the decision from the chair, they strive to have the voting process work for the existing community. If suddenly there’s a surge of people who were never active in this community subscribing to the mailing list and voting for any of the candidates, I would consider this be a kind of hostile takeover.
>
> Honestly, I think the only fair way out of this would be if the candidate who received the surge of votes from people outside of this community stepped down. A co-chair elected with votes from people who never participated in the RIPE community would not be accepted by this community and it would be divisive and toxic to the future work.

I don't like to go this far. We (as the chairs) have no proof or
indication that any of the candidates actively tried to manipulate the
voting. However, some candidates might be more popular in their own
social circles and may have mentioned that they are candidates. And I
think that's all good and fair.
I can't blame the candidates for this or for the fact if someone then
just signed up to vote for him. I have no indication that he/she
motivated them to do this.
As such, I assume all candidates are innocent and did not try to
manipulate the voting.

Regards,
    Martin Winter
    Open Source WG Chair


--
Ondřej Surý (He/Him)
ondrej@sury.org