[For Janelle our Nominations Committee representative] Problem: There are 6 positions open on Council, 4 of which are for 3-year terms (the usual), and 2 of which are for 1-year terms (due to recent by-law change). Possible solutions, from the idiotic to the clever (but not necessarily in that order here) include: 1. Elect 6 people, randomly assign who gets 1- and who gets 3-year terms. 2. Hold separate elections in OpaVote (or whatever) as if they were entirely different positions. 3. Just elect 6 people, let Council decide which ones serve for how long. 4. Just elect 6 people, let them fight it out among themselves. 5. Elect 6 people, let them each blindly choose 1- or 3-year term based on ranking 6. Elect 6 people, let them each choose 1- or 3- year term based on ranking in discussion with each other. Since #5 and #6 are my suggestions, I will detail them a bit, below. Worth noting, though, that although #2 has the huge advantage that a nominee could decide in advance that she wants to stand for only 1 year, it simultaneously has the disadvantage that each nominee has to decide in advance how many years he wants to run for, and he might win or lose depending on who else decides to go for that number of years. More importantly, perhaps, running a separate election would likely be a big pain for those running the elections. Because we are using an instant run-off election or ranked-choice voting system, whoever is running the election knows who among the 6 people elected got the most votes, the 2nd most votes, etc. (Even if that information is not shared with the electorate.) Thus for suggestions #5 the highest ranked Councilor-elect gets to choose whether she wants one of the two 1-year or one of the four 3-year terms. Then the 2nd highest is asked if he wants the one remaining 1-year or one of the four remaining 3-year terms OR if he wants one of the two remaining 1-year or four remaining 3-year terms. If any 1-year terms remain, the third ranking is asked to choose. And so on, until there is no longer any choice (because only one term length remains available). In suggestion #5, each Councilor-elect is queried in private (probably via e-mail or phone call) in rank order. Suggestion #6 is the same, but to ask the question of each in order with all 6 of them in the same (virtual) room, so haggling can take place. (So someone who really only wants to commit to 1 year can maybe convince someone higher in the rankings who doesn’t care …)