TSC Voting Process

Voting - Charter

Voting in the Zephyr Project is defined under Section 8 of the Project Charter.

Additional points of clarity / TSC interpretation have been added below.

The Governing Board may opt to update the Charter to include the below refinements. Until then, additional clarifications (if/where needed) will be discussed in the Process Working Group, and approved in the TSC.

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TSC In-Meeting Voting

For items requesting an in-meeting vote of the Zephyr Technical Steering Committee (TSC), assuming quorum requirements have been met, the default voting mechanism will be a verbal motion to determine if there is general consensus. If there are no objections to a motion being brought forward, general consensus is assumed and the motion passes. Should there be any objections raised, the vote will move to email, and be executed using the Voting Guidelines outlined in Section 8 of the Project Charter.

Should a motion be deemed urgent by the TSC Chair, and assuming quorum requirements have been met, the Chair may call for a roll call vote in-meeting.

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Voting Options / Abstentions

Voting Options: "Yes", "No" or "Abstain"

Abstention: A vote cast to abstain shall not have any impact in the positive/yes/+1 nor negative/no/-1 direction of a voting process. An abstention is treated as a neutral zero and will reduce the voting pool to which the passage criteria is applied.

Example: 34 eligible TSC voters. 3 abstain from a vote on a motion. The voting pool is reduced to 31. To pass a majority vote you would need 16 votes in favor to advance the motion (34-3 = 31 x 1/2 = 15.5 = 16) not the original 18. (34 x 1/2 = 17 = 18 for a majority)

(TSC vote to adopt the above policy: https://lists.zephyrproject.org/g/tsc/message/321)

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TSC Suspensions

As noted under Section 8c of the Project Charter, Voting rights for a representative who misses three consecutive meetings are subject to suspension and suspended representatives do not count towards the quorum requirement. A representative’s suspension will end and voting rights restored at the start of the next attended meeting.

The TSC enforces the suspension policy for voting members who miss three consecutive TSC weekly meetings. Multi-day meetings (F2F events) are counted as "one" meeting.

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Immutable Votes

Votes are considered immutable once cast. A voter may not change their vote, once cast, between the time a Motion is brought forth and the time at which Results are announced.