Bitcoin Foundation Voting Round Could End With No Clear Winners

Following the sudden resignations of former BitInstant CEO Charlie Shrem and Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles earlier this year, the Bitcoin Foundation has been short two members for its Board of Directors, its key decision-making body.

Due to the ensuing fallout, many community members and current board members have expressed optimism that the newly elected candidates will reinvigorate the foundation at a time when it is seeking to bring bitcoin's message to mainstream consumers worldwide.

However, though the polls are scheduled to close just shy of midnight tonight, there remains the possibility that the current round of voting may end without any new members immediately being elected to its Board of Directors, Brian Goss, chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation’s election committee, told CoinDesk.

This is due to wording in the organization’s bylaws that requires candidates be elected by “a majority of quorum of Industry Members”. In the case of the Board of Directors election, candidates must exceed a threshold of votes in an approval score-style election in order to be elected.

Goss said that potential issues may arise because of this particular style of voting, stating:

"We used approval voting [where voters select as many candidates as they approve of] to increase the odds that any candidate gets above that very high hurdle. The hurdle is really high given the large number of candidates."

One potential outcome, Goss says, is that no candidate exceeds the threshold required to join the board.

Further, if one of the candidates is elected during the first round, a second round would need to be held in order to elect a second Industry Member, Goss said.

Fifteen candidates

are in the running for the two open seats, a list which includes BTC China CEO Bobby Lee and Gyft co-founder and CEO Vinny Lingham.

The election previously began with a rocky start, as technology glitches led to voting delays. This resulted in a deadline extension from 28th April to 30th April.

Voting questions image via Shutterstock