Those of you who are members of FAN receiving emails from our Google Group will have gotten this notice via email with the result of the vote:
This being the first election cycle held since FAN’s incarnation, this will also be the first time that FAN has considered endorsements. At the outset of our endeavor to poll membership, the FAN Board was unsure about the ability for the organization to form as a non-profit which could possibly take donations, and which also could act as a pass-through for other non-profits, while at the same time be an endorsing organization.
In the interest of time we commenced with the ballot language of a list with possible candidates in each district along with the “no preference” option while the Board researched legal statuses. Endorsing candidates wasn’t an original intention of the formation of FAN but the Board believes that showing a public sign of support for candidates who meet our supermajority threshold could greatly help further our vision and mission at the local political level.
As of yesterday, the voting period ended, and Helios’ secure online voting system has compiled the results. Based on the language of ballots and the intention to make endorsements once legal status was defined, the board chose to endorse a candidate on the vote of the membership only if they met the usual standard of a 60% majority threshold for all FAN Delegates who cast votes. For the At-large block’s Delegate vote, an “endorse” stance for a particular candidate was calculated by obtaining the plurality of votes for that district.
For the Mobility Bond, the votes that were actively cast as “Abstain” were counted as a neutral position, not in favor nor in support, but were included in the count for total votes to calculate the same supermajority threshold.
Based on these standards, here are the 2016 FAN endorsements:
Council Candidates:
- District 2: Delia Garza
- District 4: Gregorio “Greg” Casar
- District 6: No consensus
- District 7: Natalie Gauldin
- District 10: Sheri Gallo
Mobility Bond: No consensus
View complete voting information and results here: Votes – Friends of Austin Neighborhoods
As always discussion prior to these votes took place on our forums: http://forum.atxfriends.org/, which are open to the public. We welcome all opinions and discussion to help inform our membership.
If you would still like to complete research on Council candidates and the Mobility Bond issue, you can catch up on the online Q&A forums we conducted via the Reddit AMA format. We understand Austin to be the first city ever to host a coordinated effort to have all Council candidates respond to an AMA.
FAN has also comprised a Council vote tracking page and encourages you all to connect directly with your candidates via social media. And last but not least don’t forget our 4-question Candidate Questionnaire.