Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy/Election of Arbitrators

Elections for the Arbitration Committee are held on an annual basis for two weeks in December, as the terms of four Arbitrators expire on 31 December of a year, and it is their four seats that are up for election during the month of December. By-elections may also be called (by Jimbo Wales) if a sufficient number of Arbitrators (believed to be two) step down at any given point in time; some Arbitrators may choose to step down at roughly the same time as the annual elections, which would mean that their seats will also be elected during the standard annual proceedings.

The voting uses MediaWiki's Special:Vote software; for elections up to and including December 2004 the voting method used was approval voting. It is expected that future votes will be held using a single transferable vote system.

Candidates for the elections are expected to prepare a statement on a page which will be announced to Wikipedia as a whole; see e.g. Arbitration Committee Elections July 2004/Candidate statements or Arbitration Committee Elections December 2004/Candidate statements. Developers will add candidates to the list provided by the voting software up until the elections open.

The first by-election was held in July 2004. The first annual election was held in December 2004.

See also: ArbCom election results