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election_guidelines.md

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+**TLDR: these guidelines allow council members to be appointed or removed by any community member (democratic) but only when proper arguments are provided (technocratic) while implementing measure to secure the funds. 
+In case of doubts, the CC can fall back on these basic principels of a) allowing motions by any community member and b) only approving motions when considered valid based on their argumentation.**
+
+# Community council election guidelines
+The Grin Community Council (CC) originally consisted of four by the OC appointed trusted community members with a proven track record and two council members which were elected based on public community voting.
+Based on input from the community, it was decided to move towards a fully elected council. Having a fully elected CC council is however more vulnerable to attacks, spam and sabotage and unnecessary drama. To protect against such attacks, these guidelines implement additional safety-measures while empowering the community to elect or remove council members. In this document we will outline procedural guidelines for the election process, minimal requirements for council members and minimal requirements for community members to vote with the aim to balance a) protection of CC funds, knowledge and experience within the council and b) enabling community members to elect or remove council members.
+
+## Election process
+When one or more CC members step down, an election is organised. Candidates for a CC election can step forward based on an invitation by CC members as well as step forward without any invitation. Any community member can become a candidate if he/she/it meets the minimal requirements and has endorsement of the majority of the existing council members.
+All candidates are asked to put a motivation of their candidacy on the forum. If all candidates have posted on the forum, an election period of approximately one month is started and announced on the forum and publicised via the newsletter with a link to the motivation letter of each candidate. In this period of one month, community members can vote for their candidates. 
+Community members are allowed to vote on multiple candidates since this can be used to down vote any other candidate(s).
+Voting is tallied by likes of the candidacy post. Only votes from community members who are part of the community before the election period has started and with a minimal Grin forum Trust Level of 1 are counted.
+
+## Conditions to become a CC members
+To become a CC candidate in an election, a community council member needs to meet the following three requirements:
+*1) A minimal trust level of 1 on the forum
+*2) A proven track record of mainly constructive contribution to Grin as project
+*3) A minimum of one year being an active community member
+
+## Endorsement by existing council members
+Candidates needs endorsement/support from the majority of the existing Community Council members. In the current situation of six council members this translates to needing support from at least four council members. These requirements are in line with the Security and [Funding Approval sheme]([url](https://github.com/grincc/docs/blob/Anynomouss-patch-4/approval-scheme.md)) which defines that any decision regarding funds and security requires 4/6 council members to approve a decision.
+To avoid candidates from explicitly having to ask for support, this _endorsement is implemented as no-objection unless specified otherwise_. Any objections must be well formulated and communicates publicly on the grin forum. Any community members can file an objection to a council member candidate. 
+Like with every decision in Grin governance, proper argumentation needs to be provided for an objection to be considered. Simply objecting because you do not like a candidate will be dismissed. 
+The above specified minimal requirements and the fails-safe allowing all community members to protect the CC funds.
+
+## Managing the CC Multisig wallet
+An additional 1 key is created for any new CC Bitcoin Multisig wallet to be hold by an OC or otherwise trusted community member. In the current setup this translates to a 4/7 Multisig. This extra key protects and deters against attacks on the CC where without this extra key only three council members could take CC funds hostage or even destroy funds simply by refusing to sign any transactions. The key-holder of this extra key will only be asked to sign a transaction if the funds or the functioning of the council is at risk and has not voting power.
+To prevent having to generate a new Multisig wallet for all changes in council members, which requires significant coordination and time, a maximum of two keys can be shared by with new council members by their predecessors before generating a new Multisig if deemed safe by the CC. To allow more flexibility in appointment of temporary or long-term CC members, council members can ask a community member to become their representative with voting power while the CC member only maintains their responsibility as key-holder. This is a great option for allowing community member to give Grin governance a try without having to 'commit' for the longer term to the council. In case a representative step down, the key-holder can simply jump to activity again to prevent any disruption to the council’s governance. Any community member can bring forward an objection to appointment of a representative or innitiate a review of a representative the same way they can for full CC members. Upgrading a representative to a full CC member and key-holder requires a Community Council election.
+
+## Review and removal of council members
+A council member can be requested to step down after prolonged inactivity, inability to sign transactions or inability to perform basic CC tasks. A review of a council member can be initiated by any community member on the forum. However, any decision will be based on the provided argumentation and will require 4 out of 6 council members to endorse the request. It should be noted that for such descission all facts and arguments will be taken in consideration. Other factors like a) the availability of community members to replace the council member b) optional representative and key-signing structure and c) other merits and contribution to governance such reviewing code or high quality input, will be taken into consideration. 
+It is adviced to innitiate a review for all council member after they served for four years. Such a review is a good chance to get (re)-invigorated by positive feedback on the forum, to step down or simply to reflect on how you want to contribute to the project.
+