Dear Avri ( sorry to send to all 3 addresses I have from you, don't know which is the best one!) After carefully read your blog about elections/vote , I do agree the system is not the best. I hate excuses as people is not capable to vote, since from this region we are tired to hear such excuses from dictators trying to explain why they need to continue to govern.... Nothing is less democratic than to decide that people can not vote and use several reasons to support such theory. Wider suffrage may be difficult to control and to have it in a proper manner will cost too much. But to have each ALS to vote I see no big deal. We already vote for all positions representing the region, both inside the Ralo or to seat at ALAC, so what is the problem to vote for the seat 15? Not the same number of representatives from each region? Can be solved with a adequate weight for some region's votes. The seat 15 is there to represent the users in general, so the users must be able to choose their representative. Allowing only ALAC plus the chairs can be easily driven to this or that person. What I see as relevant is a candidate to be submitted to a huge process of debate about candidate's knowledge and capacity to represent all regions, but this can be done with a interview to each candidate by each Ralo. I also see a limit, based on curriculum vitae, of candidates - may be around 3 - to such position to not have a whole year of interviews. Anyway, count on me to try to change the vote rule, specially because we will enter the process to substitute Sebastien ( he entered when I left Oct 2010- since the start point changed he got 6 more months added to the 3 years term a- starting on june 2011. - june 2014) There is also another movement to have all member to leave and enter at the same time (good for the nomcom since give the clear view what have been chosen by SOs before the decision, allowing the group to select a more balanced board). If this happen, I am in favor to end Sebastien term in december this year, which give us small amount of time to question the rule. So let's work. All the best Vanda Scartezini Sent from my iPad