# Does the Nov 16 - Nov 30 voting timeframe still work? **URL:** \ **Category:** Committers\ **Created:** [November 13, 2018, 2:41pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/does-the-nov-16-nov-30-voting-timeframe-still-work/434 "2018-11-13T14:41:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 9
**Author:** ![ambv](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/ambv/32/25884_2.png) [@ambv](https://discuss.python.org/u/ambv)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2018, 12:02pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/does-the-nov-16-nov-30-voting-timeframe-still-work/434/9 "2018-11-14T12:02:14Z")
There’s a few things I need to respond to and a general comment so I’ll use fancy headers to signify what I’m focusing on. ### Time for reviews and questions > [@Python Governance Electoral System](https://discuss.python.org/t/python-governance-electoral-system/290/119): > > I’d say we need to give people at least two weeks for reviews and questions. Right. PEPs published early gave people more than a month for reviews and questions. This happened amply on Discourse and the mailing list already. Interested parties could always come in and ask questions. Others decided not to engage and that is their choice. ### Pushing the vote later > [@Python Governance Electoral System](https://discuss.python.org/t/python-governance-electoral-system/290/115): > > I want to get this done soon too, but I don’t like cutting off substantive, productive discussion. Obviously 3 days is too soon for that. Maybe 10 days is enough, maybe not, I don’t know? And IIRC people also wanted to avoid having the polling period overlap with the holidays, so even a one week delay might be equivalent to pushing it into next year, I’m not sure. Exactly right: pushing it by even “one week” will likely mean we are pushing the vote to 2019. ### Inability to change your vote: WHAT? > [@Python Governance Electoral System](https://discuss.python.org/t/python-governance-electoral-system/290/113): > > But in [this thread](https://discuss.python.org/t/pep-8001-public-or-private-ballots) it was decided to switch to a system where it’s impossible for people to change their mind after they vote. Wait, what? Why? I don’t see this decided anywhere. The original PEP 8001 specified explicitly that people are free to change their mind for the period of the vote. To change this we would need to have an explicit discussion about why this is an issue, there was none. If you mean “ Allow voters to write in new choices.” then I understood this as the inability for people to _add new options_ to the poll. This is of course uncontroversial. ## General comment: I am troubled by the ensuing chaos. The first version of PEP 8001 was published on October 15th. It stated, among other details, a date for the vote far enough in advance. In fact, this date was based directly on @Mariatta’s [original proposal from August 1](https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-committers/2018-August/005960.html). There were no suggestions for any other dates and any concern voiced about inadequate time for reviews and questions. The first batch of governance PEP placeholders was posted to the repository in late August by @barry. Before anyone started work on those, we spent significant time researching how third-party projects are governed and wrote down summaries in PEP 8002. Then came the core sprint in Redmond when the initial crop of PEPs got volunteers to actually author it. @steve.dower quickly penned his own new proposal, followed by @jackjansen who was not at the sprint. @vstinner was not happy with any existing proposal and decided to post a late addition on October 6th. Mariatta’s original timeline for PEP authorship and review was well known and understood, as proven by Victor’s plea to [wait for his PEP](https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-committers/2018-October/006245.html) since there was a [non-disputed deadline for original PEP submissions](https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-committers/2018-September/006127.html) of October 1st that was later extended by a week. That means PEPs 8010 - 8015 were evolving for a good 6 weeks with ample time for reviews and discussion. In this setup, PEP 8016 (announced two weeks ago!) should not have even been considered but I’ve stayed quiet about this because I didn’t want to hinder what seemed like a healthy discussion. But in exchange I expected the authors of PEP 8016 to understand that they should not hold everybody else hostage due to their late submission. I hope the ordeal with “putting the PEP 8001 back into draft status” to switch from IRV to Condorcet (and from GitHub votes to CIVS) will work out. Based on Tim’s comments above, looks like [provided the voters are of light build and relatively sedentary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG8wJtZx-uU&feature=youtu.be&t=253) we might even end up with a Condorcet winner the first time round! 😉 My biggest hope though is that we won’t see any more last minute disruptions. --- _[View the full topic](https://discuss.python.org/t/does-the-nov-16-nov-30-voting-timeframe-still-work/434)._