Adding election procedures as a policy document (#371)

* adding election proceedures

* Update election-procedures.md based on review

Author: ceb8

policies/election-procedures.md

@@ -0,0 +1,164 @@
+# Astropy Election Procedures
+
+## Overview
+
+Astropy votes are managed with the [Helios Voting platform](https://heliosvoting.org) and
+announced publicly via the astropy-dev mailing list and the OpenAstronomy Discourse forum. 
+
+## Procedure for creating an election
+
+1.  Set a date for the election and announce the election
+    - This sets various deadlines that must be followed by nominees and voting members / CoCo nominees
+    - Election start date must be at least 4 weeks after the announcement email
+      - In announcement email, call for additional nominees
+      - Deadline for nominations at least 2 weeks before election
+      - The election is open for 2 weeks once it’s open
+    - [See template email below](#Email-templates)
+    - Send email to list of voting members (not just astropy-dev) - the email list in the
+     Google drive. That way, you see if emails bounce and can hunt down a corrected email address
+2. Collect nominees for new voting members / CoCo members and inform them
+   - Collect nominations from roles survey and emails to coordination committee
+   - Email nominees to inform them of nomination
+   - Deadline to accept nomination 1 day before election opens
+   - Inform nominees that to accept the nomination, they must send a few sentence description of
+     their contributions to astropy and justification for voting member status to the CoCo 
+     [See template email below](#Email-templates)
+3. Post nominee statements to voting-members topic in OpenAstronomy Astropy Discourse
+   - The election manager posts the nominee statements in the OpenAstronomy Discourse
+      voting-members topic (private to only voting members, as described in APE0)
+   - One post per nominee
+4. Collect any additional ballot measures to be voted on (e.g., changes to APE0, etc...)
+   - Post the ballot measures in the OpenAstronomy Discourse voting-members
+   - One post per ballot measure
+5. Set up the election on Helios Voting (see next section)
+
+## Running an election with Helios
+
+1. Log into [helios](https://vote.heliosvoting.org/)
+2. Click “Create an election”
+   - Short name convention: astropy-\<description\>-\<month\>-\<year\> 
+     For example: astropy-voting-members-july-2022
+   - Name convention: Astropy \<description\> — \<month\> \<year\> 
+     For example: Astropy Voting Members — July 2022
+   - Description: Write a one sentence description of the election
+   - Check “Private?” to ensure that only registered voters can see the ballot
+   - Voting starts at: select the predetermined date for the election to start
+     (12:00 UTC for the time)
+   - Voting ends at: two weeks after the start date
+   - All other field left as default values
+4. Now we have to add questions to the ballot. Click the “questions(0)” link to add a new question
+   - Add one question for each nominee: “Do you support adding \<NAME\> as an Astropy voting member?”
+     - Make each required by selecting “select between 1 and 1 answers”
+     - Add “Yes”, “No”, “Abstain” as possible answers
+   - Add one question for each ballot measure
+     - Make each required by selecting “select between 1 and 1 answers”
+     - Add “Yes”, “No”, “Abstain” as possible answers
+5. Make sure the list of current voting members is complete
+   - The list is in [google sheets](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18VOl-EAwefcwi1aNLWXnZ0-a9WTBx4ry_QB8t23tYKw/edit#gid=0) (permission required).
+   - Download the list as a CSV, remove the first row (the headers), and upload as registered voters
+6. Freeze the ballot and set it to open voting at the start time
+   - Go to the “voters & ballots” link and prepare / send an email with voting
+     information to all voters
+   - DO NOT copy paste to fill the “Body” section of the form, instead use that space to add
+     any additional info you want to send to all voters.
+7. After the ballot closes, “compute encrypted tally” and then “compute results”
+   - Send the results email
+8. Add newly voting members to organization
+   - Create a PR to add any newly-added voting members to https://github.com/astropy/astropy.github.com
+     (see https://github.com/astropy/astropy.github.com/pull/496 for an example)
+   - Add new voting members and their emails to the google sheet
+
+
+## Email templates
+
+**Note:** any text in “\<\>” should be updated for future emails.
+
+### Election announcement
+
+Subject: Announcing Astropy Voting Member Election: \<July 2022\>
+
+Dear Astropy Community,
+
+The next Astropy Voting Member election will be on \<July 8, 2022.\>
+
+We have already received some nominations from the Roles survey, but are accepting additional
+nominations for new voting members until the end of \<June 21\> (anywhere on Earth).
+To nominate someone (or yourself) to be a voting member, please fill out this form:
+https://forms.gle/f1hi6MNEmw1RzYPY7 
+
+For the Coordination Committee,
+\<sender name\>
+
+<hr/>
+
+Subject: Announcing Astropy Coordination Committee Election: \<September 2022\>
+
+Dear Astropy Community,
+
+The next Astropy Coordination Committee (CoCo) election will begin on \<September 25, 2022\>.
+One seat is available as \<name's>\ terms is coming to an end. The new member will serve a
+3-year term. More details about the process are described in APE0.
+
+Nominations are open now and will close on \<Friday, September 23\> (anywhere on Earth).
+Anyone is welcome to nominate. To nominate someone (or yourself) to be a CoCo Member,
+please fill out the Nomination Form: \<link\>.
+
+Nominees will be asked via email whether they wish to accept their nomination.
+If they accept, the nominee will be asked to provide a short statement on the
+Open Astronomy Discourse.
+
+For the Coordination Committee,
+\<sender name\>
+
+### Inform nominees
+
+Subject: Accepting Nomination as an Astropy Voting Member
+
+Dear \<NOMINEE\>,
+
+Congratulations, you have been nominated to be a new voting member for the Astropy Project!
+If you are not sure about the election process, or the expectations of the role, we encourage you
+to look over APE0 (https://github.com/astropy/astropy-APEs/blob/main/APE0.rst#the-voting-members).
+Being a voting member principally means agreeing to vote in Astropy elections, which occur at most
+a few times per year (i.e. this is not a serious time commitment on top of your existing role(s)
+within the project).
+
+If you wish to accept this nomination, please respond to this email indicating whether you would
+like to accept this nomination. If you do accept the nomination, please write a few sentence
+description of your contributions to the Astropy Project that demonstrates the points defined
+in APE0 (https://github.com/astropy/astropy-APEs/blob/main/APE0.rst#membership) and send them to
+the election managers (reply-all to this email). 
+
+If you do not reply by the end of the day \<July 7\>, we will assume you do not wish to accept
+this nomination. You can also explicitly decline by responding to this email. 
+
+For the Coordination Committee
+\<sender name\>
+
+<hr/>
+
+Subject: Nomination to be an Astropy Coordination Committee Member
+
+Dear \<NOMINEE\>,
+
+Congratulations, you have been nominated to be a new member of the Coordination Committee
+(CoCo) for the Astropy Project!  If you are not sure about the election process, or the
+expectations of the role, we encourage you to look over APE0
+(https://github.com/astropy/astropy-APEs/blob/main/APE0.rst#the-coordination-committee).
+Being a CoCo member has a number of responsibilities that are outlined in APE0, but feel
+free to reach out to current CoCo members with any questions.
+
+Please respond to this email indicating whether you would like to accept or decline
+this nomination. If you accept the nomination, you must also post a candidate statement on
+the OpenAstronomy Discourse forum. A direct link to start a new post in the Astropy category
+with the “Astropy” and “CoCo-Election” tags is: https://community.openastronomy.org/new-topic?title=2022%20CoCo%20Election:Name&category=Astropy&tags=astropy,coco-election .
+If you don’t already have an account, you can sign up first and then follow the link to
+auto-fill your post. You don’t need to do anything other than posting a candidate statement to
+accept this nomination and stand in the election.  Voters will be directed to this candidate
+statement at the time of the election. 
+
+To accept the nomination, you must post a candidate statement by the end of the day
+\<September 24, 2022\>.
+
+For the Coordination Committee,
+\<sender name\>