This week, the Signpost covers the beginning of the Arbitration Committee elections, and profiles candidates in this year's elections.

The December 2006 Arbitration Committee elections opened this week. 36 candidates are running for one of at least five positions on the Committee. The elections will run for the next two weeks, ending on Sunday, 17 December. It is anticipated that Jimbo Wales will make his selections for the Committee on Monday or Tuesday, and the newly elected Arbitrators will take their positions on 1 January, 2007.

At the beginning of the elections, 37 candidates had submitted their names. As of press time, one candidate, Doc glasgow, has withdrawn from the race.

Current arbitrator Jayjg decided not to run for another term, saying, "I appreciate the support, everyone, but ... the thought of being trolled again during the voting (and afterwards) the way I was last year is just a bit too much to tolerate." With all four members whose seats are up for reelection choosing not to run again, and an empty seat, at least five seats will be filled in this year's election.

Just over a day into the elections, five candidates held over 90% support: Paul August, Kirill Lokshin, Flcelloguy, UninvitedCompany, and Jpgordon. In all, 18 of the 36 candidates held at least 50% support, making them eligible to be chosen by Jimbo Wales at the close of the elections. Paul August was unanimously supported at press time, while Kirill Lokshin and Flcelloguy had received just one oppose vote each.

The Signpost election guide is still available, and has been updated from last week with new candidates, as well as other candidates who were not able to submit responses to our questions in time for last week's issue. The election guide is intended to be a brief overview of each candidate's beliefs and experiences. More detailed information about each candidate may be gleaned from their user pages, as well as their responses to questions from other users.

Due to size, the guide has been split up alphabetically, though a page transcluding all sections is available below:

ArbCom candidate profiles:    A-F  |  G-K  |  L-R  |  S-Z  |  All  |  (Withdrawn)

Among the most controversial candidates in the elections were former arbitrator and administrator Kelly Martin, who entered the race earlier this week, and Phil Sandifer, who held 14% and 18% of the vote, respectively.

Updated statistics on the election are available at User:Gurch/Reports/ArbComElections and User:Mathbot/ArbCom Election December 2006; the former utilizes the new sortable wikitable syntax, allowing users to sort the results by the number of support and oppose votes, the support-oppose margin, and the support percentage.