OGP Steering Committee 2017 Rotation Note and Election Results

The OGP Articles of Governance require the OGP participating governments to vote to elect new government representatives to the Steering Committee each year.  One months before voting was due to begin, the Support Unit sent information on the requirements to be a candidate to all the active, participating governments.  Of those 73 eligible governments, 12 elected to compete for one of the four available seats.  The twelve countries were Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Canada, Italy, Mongolia, Nigeria, Paraguay, Philippines, South Africa, South Korea and Sri Lanka.  South Africa was competing to be re-elected to the SC after finishing an extended term.  In accordance with the Articles of Governance, the Governance and Leadership subcommittee reviewed the full slate of candidates for their compliance with the eligibility criteria to stand for election.  All 12 candidates were approved.

The Support Unit contracted an independent and experienced elections firm, EveryoneCounts, to organize and run the election.  Instructions were sent to the points of contact in each government shortly before the election opened on February 22.  Reminders were sent periodically to governments and a total of 68 of the 73 active OGP governments participated in the election (93%) before it closed on March 15.

Countries were asked to rank their preferences so that the top choice received 12 points, second choice received 11 points, etc.   Based on the results, four of the 12 countries were elected to full three-year terms (Canada, Italy, South Korea and South Africa).  The following is the full list of results.

* = As the highest scoring government from Africa, South Africa was automatically granted the fourth seat on the Steering Committee.  The regional balance mechanism is described in the OGP Articles of Governance and was designed to ensure all regions are represented with at least one and not more than four seats on the Steering Committee.

The Government rotation process was coordinated by the Government Support team of the Open Government Partnership Support Unit.  Questions can be directed to Jack Mahoney at the OGP Support Unit: jack.mahoney@opengovpartnership.org

OUTLINE OF 2017 STEERING COMMITTEE ELECTION PROCESS FOR GOVERNMENTS

Schedule

The current Steering Committee (specifically the Governance and Leadership subcommittee) agreed the following revised schedule for the 2017 election:

Governments Applying to Join the SC in 2017:

Frequently Asked Questions

Are all governments eligible to run for a seat on the SC?

Only OGP participating governments that meet the following criteria can run for the SC:

To be eligible for election participating OGP countries must:

1. Have improved or maintained their eligibility score since submitting a letter of intent to join OGP.
2. Have published all OGP required documents (action plans, self-assessment reports, etc.) within a month of deadlines.
3. Have acted in accordance with the Open Government Declaration.

Current SC members running for reelection (applies only to South Africa) must have:

4. Provided financial support to OGP (except in cases of extreme financial hardship).
5. Regularly attended and participated actively in Steering Committee meetings and subcommittee meetings.

How many governments from each region can serve on the SC together?

A maximum of four governments and a minimum of one government can serve on the Steering Committee from each of the four regions OGP uses (Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe).  If one region has four governments already on the SC, no others can be elected.  If one region has three governments on, only one more can be elected from the same region.  The chart below shows how the governments not transitioning are sorted into regions.

Governments unsure of their regional classification can consult this page at the UN Statistics Division for clarification: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm.

The current breakdown of other members of the Steering Committee is below:

1 = Term ends 2018, not eligible for reelection

2 = Term ends 2018, eligible for reelection
3 = Term ends 2019, not eligible for reelection
4 = Term ends 2019, eligible for reelection

How should the application letter be formatted?

The letter should be addressed to the four OGP co-chairs (see here) and should include details of the candidate government, its track record in open government related issues, a statement of intent on how it plans to contribute to OGP’s leadership, and what strengths it would bring to the SC.

How will the voting actually occur?

As with previous years, all governments will be sent a complete list of candidate governments in advance of the voting period (by email), and will have three weeks to complete their ballot online.  Governments must rank their preferences from first to last, but do not need to rank all options.  The election is administered by an independent company, EveryoneCounts.  Ballots are secret and will not be public or shared with the Support Unit.  Only the final results will be accessible.

Scoring for this election

The system for this election is officially called Borda.  The way it works is that when each voter ranks their preferences, the top-ranked government will get 12 points, the second place one gets 11 points, third place gets 10 points and so on for as many governments as the voter ranks.   So for example if a voter were to rank all 12 countries (ie Country A first, Country B second, etc until Country L 12th), Country A would get 12 points from the vote, Country B would get 11 points, and so on until Country L gets one point.  If the voter chose to any rank the top six countries in the same order, Country A would still get 12, Country B 11, and so on until Country F gets six points.  Once the election closes, all points are added up and the country with the most points gets elected (after accounting for the regional balance mechanism).

If there is a tie between two governments, the tie will be broken by determining which government received the most first place votes. For example, if two governments were both awarded 320 points, but one government got 15 first place votes and the other got 14, the one with 15 votes will win.

If my government has not contributed to the OGP Support Unit, are we still eligible to vote in 2017?

Yes, as a part of the ‘Rules of the Game’ review currently underway this requirement that governments contribute to the Support Unit to participate in a vote of all members is not yet in effect but could be for the 2018 election.

Who should I contact if I have questions?

If you have questions, please contact Jack Mahoney (Jack.Mahoney@opengovpartnership.org) or your Support Unit contact.