Elections

Election information

Each year, we hold elections for the board of directors for Altonimbus Entertainment (the organization that produces and runs the Kumoricon convention). Altonimbus Entertainment, and thereby Kumoricon, is governed by a board of directors consisting of nine members who each serve annual terms. Terms begin and end at the conclusion of voting for the annual meeting of the body which elects each board member.

Seven of the nine board members are elected by the membership (that is, the staff of Kumoricon) at the Annual Meeting of the Membership:

  • Chair/President
  • Director of Infrastructure
  • Director of Membership
  • Director of Operations
  • Director of Programming
  • Director of Publicity
  • Director of Relations

Election details:

  • Nominations, questions, comments, and responses will be held online on the public Discord leading up to the November 22, 2025, Annual Meeting of the Membership.
  • At the November 22, 2025, Annual Meeting of the Membership, live candidate speeches, questions, and comments will be held, including an anonymous question-and-comment session.
  • Actual voting will not occur at the membership meeting. Instead, voting will be open for five days, from Thursday, November 20, at 8:00pm, Pacific Time, to Tuesday, November 25, at 8:00pm, Pacific Time.
  • All members will receive emailed voting instructions closer to November 20.
  • Members do not need to attend the meeting to vote.
  • Those who are unable to attend the meeting may watch the video replay on Twitch, and there will be time to watch it before the voting deadline.
  • Because voting is not taking place specifically at a membership meeting, proxy voting is not allowed. All members have five days to vote, and those interested in voting should directly cast their vote.
  • In order to reduce the chances of needing a runoff vote, voting will be conducted using approval voting, as specified in section 4.D.4.c of the bylaws. In approval voting, members vote for as many candidates as the member approves of, with the winner being the candidate who receives the most votes, as long as it is a majority of votes cast. There will also be a "no confidence" option for all races.
  • We will continue our use of ElectionBuddy, a third-party platform, to vote in this election.
  • Votes on ElectionBuddy are anonymous. No Kumoricon staff, including the election tellers or moderators, can see who you voted for or whether you voted "no confidence". (We can, however, see which members submitted a ballot at all.)
  • The vote counts for each candidate will be publicly published.
  • We will continue to host nominations, online Q&A, comments, and endorsements on the public Discord.
  • We are no longer mirroring the nomination list, questions, and comments on the website forums.
  • We will continue to create an archive of questions, answers, and comments on the staff website for those who do not have a Discord account.
  • Full rules and details are in our elections process document (staff login required).

Election roles

The election is being run by the following staff:

Nomination moderator: Elly, Senior Developer, Website; Administrator, Groupware
Election moderator: Rin, Investigator, Incidents Response
Teller: Rebecca, Assistant, Registration Hall
Teller: Scorpi/Angel, Assistant Manager, KumoriMarket
Teller: Robert, Chair; Assistant Director, Relations
Backup teller: Brendan, Support, Registration Software
Backup teller: Kathleen, Captain, Registration Hall
Backup teller: Maranda, Specialist, Training and Development; Event Support, Idol Festival

The nomination moderator will oversee nominations, and moderate the online questions and comments.

The election moderator will oversee elections at the election meeting.

The election moderator and tellers will receive and moderate anonymous questions and comments that are read at the meeting (see process below).

Nominations

Nominations must be seconded to be valid. A person cannot nominate or second themselves. To be listed on the candidate list below and on the ballot, a candidate must be nominated and seconded, and then accept the nomination, by the deadline. Once a candidate is nominated and seconded, they may change their acceptance status at will until the nominations deadline of Monday, November 17, 2025, 11:59pm.

Nominations and seconds can be made, and candidates may respond to nominations, in two ways:

Candidates are listed alphabetically by last name, using the preferred name as set in their official staff registration, which candidates may update at any time, or, alternately, the preferred name as requested to the nomination moderator.

Chair

  • Keanna

Director of Infrastructure

  • Taylor
  • Elaina

Director of Membership

  • Hannah

Director of Operations

  • Patrick
  • Kirk

Director of Programming

  • Bennett

Director of Publicity

  • Jessica

Director of Relations

  • Kris

Nomination records

The following is a record of the nominations, seconds, and acceptance decisions for this election:

November 2, 2025, at 7:10pm: Kala was nominated for Chair at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:10pm: Kala was seconded at Chair at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:10pm: Kala accepted their nomination for Chair.
November 2, 2025, at 7:10pm: Robert was nominated for Chair at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:10pm: Robert was seconded for Chair at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:10pm: Robert declined their nomination for Chair.
November 2, 2025, at 7:10pm: Bennett was seconded for Chair at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:10pm: Bennett was nominated for Chair at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:10pm: Bennett declined their nomination for Chair.
November 2, 2025, at 7:10pm: Hannah was nominated for Chair at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:10pm: Hannah was seconded for Chair at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:11pm: Leon was nominated for Director of Infrastructure at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:11pm: Leon was seconded for Director of Infrastructure at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:11pm: Leon declined their nomination for Director of Infrastructure.
November 2, 2025, at 7:11pm: Taylor was nominated for Director of Infrastructure at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:11pm: Taylor was seconded for Director of Infrastructure at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:11pm: Taylor accepted their nomination for Director of Infrastructure.
November 2, 2025, at 7:11pm: Elaina was nominated for Director of Infrastructure at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:11pm: Elaina was seconded for Director of Infrastructure at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:11pm: Elaina accepted their nomination for Director of Infrastructure.
November 2, 2025, at 7:12pm: Charly was nominated for Director of Membership at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:12pm: Charly was seconded for Director of Membership at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:12pm: Jessica was nominated for Director of Membership at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:12pm: Jessica was seconded for Director of Membership at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:12pm: Jessica declined their nomination for Director of Membership.
November 2, 2025, at 7:12pm: Hannah was nominated for Director of Membership at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:12pm: Hannah was seconded for Director of Membership at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:12pm: Hannah accepted their nomination for Director of Membership.
November 2, 2025, at 7:12pm: Emily was nominated for Director of Membership at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:12pm: Emily was seconded for Director of Membership at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:13pm: Patrick was nominated for Director of Operations at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:13pm: Patrick was seconded for Director of Operations at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:13pm: Patrick accepted their nomination for Director of Operations.
November 2, 2025, at 7:13pm: Mariona was nominated for Director of Operations at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:13pm: Mariona was seconded for Director of Operations at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:13pm: Kirk was nominated for Director of Operations at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:13pm: Kirk was seconded for Director of Operations at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:13pm: Ange was nominated for Director of Operations at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:13pm: Ange was seconded for Director of Operations at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:13pm: Ange declined their nomination for Director of Operations.
November 2, 2025, at 7:14pm: Bennett was nominated for Director of Programming at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:14pm: Bennett was seconded for Director of Programming at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:14pm: Bennett accepted their nomination for Director of Programming.
November 2, 2025, at 7:14pm: Steven was nominated for Director of Programming at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:14pm: Steven was seconded for Director of Programming at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:14pm: Jaki was nominated for Director of Programming at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:14pm: Jaki was seconded for Director of Programming at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:15pm: Jessica was nominated for Director of Publicity at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:15pm: Jessica was seconded for Director of Publicity at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:15pm: Jessica accepted their nomination for Director of Publicity.
November 2, 2025, at 7:15pm: Charly was nominated for Director of Publicity at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:15pm: Charly was seconded for Director of Publicity at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:16pm: Kris was nominated for Director of Relations at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:16pm: Kris was seconded for Director of Relations at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:16pm: Kris accepted their nomination for Director of Relations.
November 2, 2025, at 7:16pm: Robert was nominated for Director of Relations at Rant & Rave.
November 2, 2025, at 7:16pm: Robert was seconded for Director of Relations at Rant & Rave.
November 3, 2025, at 10:55am: Kirk accepted their nomination for Director of Operations.
November 7, 2025, at 10:22pm: Kirk was nominated for Director of Membership by Joelliuz Andino.
November 8, 2025, at 8:56pm: Kala withdrew their acceptance for Chair.
November 9, 2025, at 11:43am: Keanna was nominated for Chair by Ash Edmisten.
November 9, 2025, at 12:33pm: Kirk was seconded for Director of Membership by Alice-Meri Williams.
November 9, 2025, at 12:33pm: Keanna was seconded for Chair by Alice-Meri Williams.
November 9, 2025, at 12:48pm: Keanna accepted their nomination for Chair.
November 9, 2025, at 1:16pm: Kirk accepted their nomination for Director of Membership.
November 9, 2025, at 3:50pm: Robert declined their nomination for Director of Relations via Public Discord.
November 10, 2025, at 4:58pm: Kirk withdrew their acceptance for Director of Membership.
November 11, 2025, at 2:03pm: Emily declined their nomination for Director of Membership via Email.
November 11, 2025, at 9:49pm: Steven declined their nomination for Director of Programming via Public Discord.
November 11, 2025, at 9:59pm: Jaki declined their nomination for Director of Programming via Public Discord.
November 13, 2025, at 5:29pm: Hannah declined their nomination for Chair via Email.
November 13, 2025, at 9:12pm: Charly declined their nomination for Director of Membership via Public Discord.
November 13, 2025, at 9:12pm: Charly declined their nomination for Director of Publicity via Public Discord.

Questions and comments

The primary venue for online questions and comments will be the channels for each position on the official Kumoricon Discord public server. Please ask your question or make your comment in the appropriate channel for that position, rather than the #nominations channel.

Shortly before the meeting, we will create an exported version of the questions and answers for staff who don't have a Discord account. We will also continue to hold question-and-comment sessions at the membership meeting.

Anonymous questions and comments

After the open question-and-comment period for each candidate, we will host an additional anonymous question-and-comment period. Questions and comments may be emailed in advance, or during the meeting, to election.support@kumoricon.org.

This process is subject to the following rules:

  • The members of the moderator panel (composed of the election moderator(s) and tellers) choose anonymous questions and comments to sponsor and read at the meeting, from those submitted.
  • Anonymous questions/comments are anonymous when read at the meeting, but the moderator panel must know the identity of the person commenting. Your message must be signed with a name that clearly identifies you within the Kumoricon community.
  • As part of the moderation process, the panel may request more information from you or request a change to your question/comment, or possibly even reject your question/comment.
  • The moderator panel will reply to you stating whether your comment has been accepted.
  • Questions/comments may be shortened or summarized, and similar questions/comments from multiple people may be combined.

A more detailed explanation of the rules and process around anonymous questions and comments is available in our elections process (staff login required).