Election Without Candidates: The Process, Step by Step

A circle has to fill its facilitator role. Depending on the question asked, the session produces two very different outcomes. "Who wants it?" raises the same two hands every time, the people comfortable speaking up and free this month. "Who among us would hold this role best, and for what reasons?" produces names nobody expected, argued in front of everyone.

Election without candidates lives entirely in that shift. Nobody declares themselves, everyone writes down a name, everyone says why, and the circle consents to the person proposed. The method exists in two codified versions, classic sociocracy and the integrative election process of Holacracy, with named steps in a fixed order. Here are both sequences, the facilitator's exact wording, one example followed from start to finish, and what the session costs the people nobody names.

What the method changes compared with a vote

The basis of the decision changes. Volunteering selects on availability and appetite. A vote selects on the number of ballots. Election without candidates selects on fit for the role, argued in front of the group.

Ted Rau, who wrote the reference article on the subject for Sociocracy For All, sums up the case against volunteering in two sentences. The person who steps forward is not necessarily the right one. And the right person does not always step forward.

	Volunteering	Secret ballot	Election without candidates
What decides	Availability and appetite	The number of votes	The strength of the reasons heard
What stays hidden	The group's reservations	Everyone's reasons	The ballot, until the sharing round
What can stop the choice	Nothing	The count	An argued objection
What it costs	Roles keep going to the same people	Up to 49% of the group is left on the sidelines	You have to say in front of everyone why you nominate somebody else

The same article gives the example that shows the gap between counting and consenting. In a group of seven, four prefer candidate A and three prefer candidate B. Under majority voting, A wins. Under consent, two people object to A and nobody objects to B, so the circle elects B. Counting preferences and looking for the absence of an impediment point at two different people, and it is the second criterion that makes the circle work.

The sociocratic sequence, with the facilitator's words

Sociocracy For All cuts the session into eight moves. A seasoned circle renewing a familiar role can skip the first three, as long as it says out loud that it is skipping them.

We are following the Production circle of an engineering cooperative, six people, filling its facilitator role.

1. Restate what the role covers

The facilitator asks whoever holds the role to sum it up in three sentences. "Today we are filling the facilitator role. In this circle, the facilitator runs the meetings, sends the reminder the day before and announces the agenda." That reminder serves newcomers and veterans alike, because two circles in the same organisation rarely put the same content behind the same role name.

2. Set the term

The term gets decided at each election rather than once and for all. "We are choosing a facilitator for this circle, and I propose our default term of one year." A short term rotates the role and trains more people. A long term steadies a circle that is being shaken elsewhere. Renewing the same person stays available, since consent here replaces the protection that term limits provide in a majority vote.

3. Collect the qualities you are looking for

A round of the table completes the list of qualities. The Production circle settles on listening, the nerve to cut somebody off, familiarity with the process, and it adds one explicit priority for this election, giving practice to somebody who has none yet. That list is consented like any other rule, and it stays visible for the whole session. It will serve as the reference for each nomination, then as the tiebreaker.

4. Write your ballot

Everyone writes one sentence on a slip: "I, Nadia, nominate Karim." You can nominate yourself. You can pass. Writing comes before sharing for a precise reason, spelled out by Sociocracy For All. In a spoken round, the last people to talk follow the energy of the group, and rare information gets lost. The ballot freezes each person's thinking before it absorbs everyone else's.

5. Share the nominations and the reasons behind them

Everyone says who they nominated and why, in one or two sentences, with no replies from anyone. In our circle, the round goes like this.

• Nadia nominates Karim, because she has watched him facilitate the Clients circle and he always announces which step the group is on.
• Samuel nominates Nadia, because she knows the process better than anyone here.
• Inès nominates Karim, for the same reasons as Nadia.
• Thomas nominates Awa, because she took the facilitation training in March and has been waiting for a chance to practise.
• Awa nominates herself, because she wants the practice and thinks she knows enough.
• Karim nominates Awa, because he would rather hand the role on than hold it another year.

The facilitator writes it down in a two-column grid, who nominates and who is nominated. Awa leads with three nominations, Karim has two, Nadia one.

6. The change round

Everyone restates who they nominate now, and explains any change. Samuel moves from Nadia to Karim, because he had not registered that Karim already facilitates elsewhere. Nobody else moves. Awa and Karim end up on three nominations each.

That round does the work the ballot alone leaves undone. It lets information circulate while minority positions survive, since nobody is obliged to change their mind.

7. The facilitator proposes a name

In sociocracy, the facilitator proposes on the strength of the reasons heard rather than on the count. They can also ask somebody else to carry the proposal, invite the nominated people to settle it between themselves, or open a short exchange to bring out the most solid name.

Here, the list of qualities settles it. The circle wrote that it wanted to give practice to somebody new, Karim already facilitates the Clients circle, so the facilitator proposes Awa. "I propose that Awa facilitate this circle for a year, because she has just finished the training, she is asking for practice, and we said we wanted this role to rotate."

8. The consent round, with the nominated person last

The facilitator starts the round with the person sitting next to Awa and runs it the other way, so that Awa hears everyone before speaking. The question is about impediment rather than preference. The nomination round asks what you prefer, the consent round asks what you can live with.

Nadia consents. Inès consents. Thomas consents. Karim consents. Samuel objects, because he runs the Tuesday morning client review and the circle's policy meeting falls on Tuesday, which would cost him one or the other every time Awa needs preparation time. The circle integrates by moving the meeting to Thursday. The objection drops.

Awa speaks last and objects in turn, on her lack of experience. The facilitator reminds her that the whole circle has just given her its trust, then asks the only useful question: what would you need in order to say yes? Awa asks Karim to co-facilitate the first two sessions. The proposal is amended, the round starts again, nobody objects. The facilitator announces the decision and thanks Awa.

Holacracy's integrative election process

Holacracy codifies the same movement, more tightly. Article 5.3.5 of constitution 5.0 defines the integrative election process in six steps that the acting facilitator follows in order.

1. Describe the role. The facilitator names the role being filled and picks the term. During this step and the next one, nobody comments on the people who might be elected.
2. Nominate. Each circle member writes on a ballot the name of the eligible person who fits best in their view, and signs the ballot with their own name. Abstaining is forbidden, and so is nominating several people.
3. Sharing round. The facilitator shares the nominations one at a time. Each person says why their name would fit, with no replies from anyone, and no comment on the other names.
4. Change round. Once every nomination has been shared, anyone can change theirs and say why. No responses are allowed.
5. Propose. The facilitator counts the nominations and proposes the person with the most.
6. Objection round. The facilitator asks each member whether they see an objection. If objections come up, the facilitator moves into integration or drops the proposal.

Three details in the text carry real weight in the room.

Eligibility is closed by default. Only circle members can be elected, and a policy of the circle or of a broader circle can widen or narrow that list. The Circle Rep carries one more constraint, set out in article 5.1.1: somebody acting as Lead Link of the circle cannot serve as its Circle Rep.

When the proposal is dropped at the objection round, the facilitator goes back to the previous step, ignores every nomination cast for the dropped person, and applies the same rules to propose somebody else. The circle therefore never starts over from scratch.

The circle's facilitator holds the accountability of triggering each subsequent election when a term expires. Without that written accountability, a one-year term becomes a lifetime term through simple forgetfulness, and that is what happens to most teams that borrow the method and leave the clause behind.

Sociocracy, Holacracy, Sociocracy 3.0: the differences that matter

	Classic sociocracy	Holacracy, article 5.3.5	S3, Role Selection pattern
Passing your turn	Allowed	Forbidden, like multiple nomination	Allowed
Who gets proposed	The person with the strongest reasons	The person with the most nominations	The person the strength of the reasons points to
Extra step	Collecting the qualities sought	None	An information exchange, plus a closing celebration
What counts as an objection	An argument that the circle would be impeded	Four cumulative criteria from article 5.3.2	An argument, tested by the dedicated pattern
Tie	The facilitator decides on the prioritised qualities	Four written rules, in order	The facilitator sends it back to the group

The Role Selection pattern of Sociocracy 3.0, published by Bernhard Bockelbrink, Liliana David and James Priest under a Creative Commons licence, adds two useful things. An information exchange, between the sharing of the nominations and the change round, where each person brings or asks for whatever is missing to choose. And a closing celebration, which marks the agreement and thanks the person. That last moment looks decorative. It closes the session on something other than the count, which matters a great deal to the people who were not picked.

The same pattern recalls a precondition the three models share. The domain of the role has to be described before the session. Electing on a vague role produces a vague election, and our article on defining roles gives the outline to fill in before the ballots come out.

When it gets stuck

Two people tied

Holacracy gives the facilitator four ways out, and they pick one. Propose the person who nominated themselves, if only one of the two did. Propose whoever already holds the role, if they are among the tied. Draw between the two, blind. Or go back to the previous round and ask the people who had nominated a third name to move their nomination to one of the two.

Sociocracy works differently. The facilitator first checks whether they sense objections on either side. When both would pass, they say so to the group, then decide by going back to the list of qualities and to the priority the circle set itself. Sociocracy For All puts the principle bluntly: your task is not to find the best person, it is to find a person everyone can consent to.

In our Production circle, the two rules converge. Awa nominated herself and Karim did not, which settles it under Holacracy. The circle had prioritised practice for somebody new, which settles it under sociocracy.

The person proposed says no

A refusal is an ordinary objection, handled like the others. It almost always arrives in the same shape, a shortage of experience, of time, or of confidence.

The first move is to look for what would turn the no into a yes. Training or co-facilitation of the first sessions handles the shortage of experience. A term cut down to three sessions with a review afterwards handles the doubt. Lightening other loads, or the person committing to hand on two of their tasks, handles the shortage of time. An indicator agreed in advance handles the fear you cannot settle any other way.

The facilitator reminds the person that the whole circle has just given them its trust, then asks what they would need. Sociocracy For All adds the limit nobody ever writes down: do not push too hard. When nothing unlocks, the facilitator proposes another name without redoing the whole session, since the other nominations are still fresh in everyone's mind.

Nobody fits

The session sometimes reveals that no member of the circle brings together what the role asks for. Sociocracy 3.0 names the three ways out. The group opens the search outside, it revises its priorities, or it finds another way to cover the domain, by splitting it or attaching it somewhere else for a while.

Nominating somebody who is absent stays available in sociocracy. Ted Rau confirms it in the comments on his article. The circle nominates, it simply gets the person's consent later. That is also how a recruitment can be run, with nominations drawn from the applications received, a consent decision by the circle, then an offer made to the person.

The human cost, which most articles leave out

A secret ballot protects everybody. Nobody knows who voted for whom, and the count absorbs the judgements without making them audible. Election without candidates removes that protection. It trades anonymity for information, and the trade has a price.

Three moments hurt, and they come back at every session.

Not being nominated. You know you could hold the role, the round goes by, your name stays out of it. Sociocracy For All gives two answers, one practical and one blunt. Nominate yourself, nobody is stopping you. And accept that the nomination round does not cover every possible name. In a seasoned circle almost everybody would do, so the nominations point at a few people without ranking the others. The most useful way out is to say it. "That round was hard for me, I would have liked my name to come up. I know it is not a popularity contest, I just wanted to tell you." Five to ten minutes of meeting time, and a circle that learns you can be human in it.

Objecting to somebody you like. The objection is about a person in a role rather than about a person. The difference sits in the wording, and Sociocracy For All shows it with two sentences. "Your facilitation is confused and ineffective" closes the conversation. "I need sharp facilitation to keep track, that is what makes me productive in a meeting" opens it, and leaves the circle something to work with. The starting rule is to clarify your own need before speaking, because a judgement you have not identified always comes out as an attack.

Facilitating an election whose outcome you have a stake in. The facilitator counts, proposes and judges the objections, which gives them more weight than the role advertises. When they are close to one of the nominated people, the clean way out is to say so and hand over: "I do not feel able to do this properly here, can somebody else facilitate this election?" Holacracy provides the same remedy through its surrogate mechanism, described in article 5.3.6.

Our position fits in one sentence. The method is worth exactly what the team's feedback practice is worth, and no more. A circle that has never told anyone what it expects of them will discover in the room that it holds opinions about its colleagues, and the discovery will happen out loud in front of the person concerned. Two precautions change everything. Start with a low-stakes role, once the circle has already practised peer feedback. And keep terms short at the beginning, because a bad assignment that costs three months gets corrected, while the same mistake over two years ends in a resignation.

Running an election without candidates in Rolebase

Rolebase has no dedicated election feature. The sequence happens in a meeting, in the steps you compose yourself, and the outcome is recorded as a decision on the role concerned.

A meeting belongs to a role and consists of ordered steps, drawn from five types: talking round, discussions, checklist, indicators and tasks. An election is prepared with a meeting template chaining three talking rounds, collecting the qualities, sharing the nominations, and the change round. Notes are taken on each step during the session, which lets the report carry the reasons heard rather than the result alone.

Ballots stay outside the tool, on paper or in the medium of your choice, since their whole value comes from each person writing before hearing the others.

The consent round runs in two ways. Live in the meeting, the facilitator goes round and records the outcome. Asynchronously, a proposal in consent mode carries the name chosen, with an "I consent" and an "I object" button. That proposal embeds the matching org chart change, namely adding the person to the role, which stays pending and applies on approval. A deadline closes the round even when somebody has not answered, and early resolution stops everything at the first objection to send the circle back into integration.

Once the proposal is approved, the decision lands in the role's log, with its date and its text. Write the end of the term into it, and create a task due on that date to trigger the next election. That is the practical equivalent of the accountability Holacracy hands to its facilitator.

The governance mode sets who can edit the org chart directly. In Strict mode every change goes through a proposal, which guarantees that no elected role changes hands without a consent round.

The guide on running your first meeting covers the full path, and our article on the governance meeting places the election inside the session.

Frequently asked questions

What is an election without candidates?

It is the method by which a circle fills a role without anyone putting themselves forward. Each member writes on a ballot the name of the person who seems the best fit, a talking round makes the reasons behind each nomination public, a second round lets people change theirs, then the facilitator proposes a name and the circle consents or objects. Sociocracy uses it for its elected roles, facilitator, secretary and delegate. Holacracy codifies it in article 5.3.5 of its constitution under the name integrative election process.

Can you nominate yourself?

Yes, in all three models. Nominating yourself differs from volunteering, since the circle still has to consent. Sociocracy For All even encourages the move. When you have good reasons to think yourself qualified, your appetite is useful information for the circle. Sociocracy and Sociocracy 3.0 also allow passing your turn, which Holacracy forbids.

What do you do when two people are tied?

Holacracy writes four ways out, at the facilitator's choice: propose the person who nominated themselves when only one did, propose whoever already holds the role if they are tied, draw blind, or go back to the previous round and ask the people who had nominated another name to move their nomination to one of the two. Sociocracy first looks at which side objections might come from, then decides by going back to the list of qualities sought. The aim stays finding a person everyone can consent to.

What if the person proposed turns the role down?

Their refusal is an objection, and it gets handled like the others. The circle looks for what would turn the no into a yes: training, co-facilitation of the first sessions, a shortened term with a review, lighter loads elsewhere. The facilitator reminds them that the circle has just given them its trust and asks what they would need, without pushing beyond that. When nothing unlocks, they propose another name without redoing the whole session.

Can you nominate someone who is absent from the meeting?

Yes in sociocracy. The circle nominates, decides by consent, and collects the person's agreement afterwards. Ted Rau points out that this is also a way to run a recruitment, with nominations drawn from the applications received. Holacracy is stricter: only circle members are eligible by default, and a policy of the circle or of a broader circle can widen that list.

Which roles get filled by election without candidates?

The circle's elected roles. In sociocracy, the facilitator, the secretary and the delegate who sits in the broader circle. In Holacracy, the Facilitator, the Secretary and the Circle Rep, with one extra rule: somebody acting as Lead Link of the circle cannot serve as its Circle Rep. The same method also settles other choices, a seminar theme or a priority, by replacing the names with the options.

Do you need a dedicated tool to run an election without candidates?

No. The method asks for paper ballots, a talking round and a facilitator who holds the steps. A tool helps afterwards, to keep a record of the term and the reasons behind it. In Rolebase, the session is composed of talking round steps, the outcome is recorded through a proposal in consent mode that adds the person to the role, and the decision lands in the role's log with the end date of the term.

What to take away

Election without candidates is worth the question it substitutes for the other one. "Who wants it?" selects the people who are available and sure of themselves. "Who would fit, and why?" selects on fit, and makes the reasons for the choice public, which gives the circle information no ballot produces.

Three conditions separate a good session from a bad memory. The role is described before the ballots come out. The list of qualities sought is written down and stays visible, because it will settle the ties. And the circle has already practised feedback elsewhere, otherwise it will discover what it thinks of its members during the session, in front of the people concerned.

Rolebase gives that work somewhere to live, with meetings composed of steps you order yourself, proposals voted by consent that apply the org chart change on approval, and a decision log attached to each role. Explore the features, or create your organisation free for up to five active members.