First appeared on Medium

NEM Foundation Council Elections Announcement

On November 21, 2018, the Council held a follow-up meeting to the Extraordinary General Meeting in regard to issues with the upcoming elections for the 2019–2020 seats. Nearly all votes to approve these decisions were unanimous.

1. Accounts With a Closely Shared Source May Not Vote

Each individual member must have funded their own single voting account. Membership accounts that were funded from a source that previously funded other membership accounts will not be able to vote in the upcoming election.

The test is whether each membership account can be connected to another account within two generations of funding transactions. If so, only the first chronologically paid membership account will have voting rights, provided that such account applied for membership. All other accounts receiving funding from or giving funds to that account may not vote. If membership accounts are separated by three or more generations of transactions, they will have voting rights. These rules may be subject to some case-by-case examination.

Although we can’t show every possible scenario, please see the diagrams at the end of this page to help clarify.

2. Accounts Funded From Binance Require Verification

There are two large groups of accounts funded from Binance that are cause for concern. Instead of a blanket removal, we are allowing each person who funded his or her own membership account through his or her own individual Binance account to have voting rights if they verify the Binance transaction that funded their account.

Every membership account funded from Binance must provide a screenshot of the transaction history from their individual Binance account showing the transaction used to fund their membership account. The screenshot must also show the email address associated with that Binance account.

The deadline for providing this verification is November 27, 11:59 UTC.

We will send an email to all accounts that require this verification. If a Binance-funded membership account does not provide this verification by the deadline, that membership account will not be allowed to vote.

3. New Election Date Is Dec 14, 2018

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to implement these changes without pushing back the election date. Elections will be delayed by one week, and will otherwise still take place according to previous plans.

The new dates for voting will be December 10th — 14th, 2018.

4. Apostille Formatting Issues

Community members have noted that a few candidates submitted documents that contained formatting mistakes. On examination, these accidental rule infractions are not severe enough to warrant disqualification. The Foundation understands the concerns around this and affirms the importance of following rules, but in this case zero tolerance for mistakes would not serve the interest of a good election.

5. Multiple Votes Per Open Seat Allowed

At the request of many community members, voters will now be allowed to vote for as many candidates as they want within each category. For example, there are six council member seats available. Previously, each voter could only vote for one council candidate. This has changed so that each voter can now vote for one, two, six, ten, or any other number of council candidates.

6. Additional Note From the Council

NEM has always prided itself on its community. Uncertainty around this election has caused stress and conflict, testing the strength of this community. The Council takes its responsibility seriously and we apologize for these problems. Our highest priority is to ensure the process is carried out with fairness and due care. We are grateful for everyone who contributes to the success of NEM.

Voting Eligibility Example Diagrams

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

Example 4

Example 5

If you are affected, you will receive an email. If you have further questions, you can send them to elections@nem.foundation or post a comment in the NEM Forum at: https://forum.nem.io/t/nem-foundation-council-elections-announcement/20739

Thanks, everyone!