Q:

Election Process - Q&A Required?

Now that the election process has moved into the final stage, I was carefully looking over the final candidates to place my votes. It occurred to me that 3 of the final 10 didn't bother to do the Questionnaire.
I never thought to ask myself, is the Q&A portion actually required to run?
In my opinion, anyone who can't find the time to participate in all aspects of the selection process shouldn't be eligible, and I will vote according to this belief.
I just thought it was interesting and wanted to open discussion on this topic.

A:

Participation in the election Q&A is completely voluntary - this is asserted in the first stage of the process, which I'd quote except it's not only in the first couple lines but also I already said it above just before that hyphen.
It's not necessarily true that people who haven't answered yet don't plan to answer - sometimes for example the candidates are busy through the particular workweek that we host them, so it's not until the weekend that they can dedicate proper time.
But again, ultimate point - completely voluntary. We do it as a side thing for people to get-to-know the candidates on a more direct aspect with regards to questions that the community wants to have answers to. Whether you let their decision to or not to answer on the thread affect your vote, that's pretty fair.  Since that in itself is a way to know something about your candidate, perhaps.

A:

I'm one of the three who failed to answer it (I have now).
I don't believe it is a mandatory questionnaire. However, I have found it extremely useful in the past, and been prompt in answering it the previous two times I have stood.
It enables users from across the site to get an insight into their moderator candidates, which is something that is very helpful when deciding who to vote for. Not all users on the site know all candidates, especially if they usually stay in topics others from where the candidates contribute majorly.
I think that it should remain optional. The community can draw its own conclusions on the fact that a candidate may choose to not answer a set of questions, for whatever reasons. Often, it may be difficult to find time during the workdays (elections last just under 2 weeks, and questions only show up about halfway through). In other cases, other commitments may prevent them from writing out elaborate answers. In either case, it is an opportunity to give the community a better idea of who you are, not a requirement.

A:

As I mentioned in an answer on Meta.SE:

...over the last couple of elections there has been enough of a gap between the leaders and the rest that the questionnaire has zero impact on the final result. Your answers could lose you a few spots, but they're not going to propel you to the top...

And:

the amount of text in the answers is enough to turn anyone's brain to mush, which means that only the truly dedicated are going to read most of the answers and all the rest will be people checking out a specific candidate that they're curious about.

When you lose in an election you always look for things that went wrong and things that could be changed to advantage you (or disadvantage the opponents) next time. Once you've lost a few times (as I have!) you come to the realisation: you could change things (like mandate the completion of the questionnaire) but it won't change the usual outcome.

