Hi Erik,
Thank you for trying to find the reasons for the low turnout. I already responded on fsfe-de, but I would like to sum up my thoughts here for everyone who does not speak German.
I think it is unclear what the GA does and this makes it hard for people to make a decision. Even among us candidates, I think it is unclear what the GA does. The statements about what each of us wants to do as part of the GA are so different, not just a different direction or approach, they feel like they are about completely different tasks. I take this as another hint of the role of a Fellowship Representative and the GA in general being unclear.
I also think many voters don't know us candiates. Now there have been many steps to introduce us, but looking at all the 7s in the votes, I get the impression that many people knew one or two of the candidates and put everyone else on rank 7. That is a good choice if you want to make sure that the candidates you know are ranked higher overall and that is the approach I would take. However, I think if more of the candiates were known to the voters, the votes would use more of the ranks. This does not mean I think voting the way people have is a problem, but I think it shows us that we should do more to show people who the candidates are and what they stand for.
All in all, I think these two issues lead to voter turnout being left to chance. If the vote doesn't seem very important or it takes a significant amount of time to find out more about the candidates, then people will push off the vote and in the end, they may simply forget. I almost forgot multiple times in the past and I hardly ever knew who to vote for.
Happy hacking! Florian