Any member of the GNOME Foundation can suggest a referendum. To be accepted, a request for a referendum must be endorsed by 10% of the Membership. The overall referendum process is overseen by the Membership and Elections Committee, which can be reached at elections@gnome.org.
In September 2003, the board discussed a possible move toward an anonymous voting scheme for the annual GNOME Foundation board of directors elections and brought it to the members on foundation-list@gnome.org. After much discussion, it was agreed that there was significant objection to this so that the GNOME Foundation should hold a referendum to decide whether future elections should use an anonymous voting mechanism.
The results from the Anonymous Voting referendum are archived here for public access.