There are many ways to achieve this, i think. I don’t mean to make the process unnecessarily complicated, but since we are brainstorming… here I am spitballing:
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Pick a panel. The ZF picks panels of candidates that cover the requisite range of diversity metrics (it may not mean gender or race specifically. Just whatever leads to better potential outcomes for Zcash, e.g. people with different backgrounds/exposures), and CAP members vote on the panels.
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Pick roles, then pick people for the roles. ZF (or the CAP) votes on how what roles need to be filled, e.g. the privacy practitioner, the legal person, the BD person, the user, the crypto enthusiast from a different network, the VC guy. The CAP then votes on people for each role. This allows you to pick the best combination of roles, and then the best person for each role (rather than the five best quarterbacks, to use a sports example).
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Vote twice. Approval voting to narrow down from say 30 candidates to 10 candidates. Then vote again now that you have more color on the composition of the remaining candidates.
There are other ways to make the votes a little more nuanced:
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Have people rank or weight their votes. It better expresses preferences (though i haven’t spent much time thinking about the downsides).
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Ensure that voters have done a fair share of homework, to avoid “just vote for the person i know” behavior (aka familiarity bias). Even in restaurant voting the professional voters are asked to confirm the last date of their visit to the restaurant: The voting system | The World's 50 Best Restaurants
I want to be very clear that the elected five have my full support. I am very happy with the results; most of my favorites made it into the MGRC. (Though I think @alchemydc was a big miss. Integrating what the ECC is doing on the protocol level into how we shape the applications of our community is vital, IMO.) Last thing I want is to detract from the quality of the results with “how do we do this better talk.”
Separately, I actually disagree with the last few posts that seem to imply that people were voting based on biases. While there are (self-aware or unaware) misogynists and racists in most groups, I don’t think there is likely to be many such persons on the CAP (although this is better left for people who personally know most the CAP to adjudicate on).
However, people do vote for the people they have met/interacted with/understand. I would probably do the same without the right structures/assists in place… even if I knew that that might lead to a board that was not as diversified as it needs to be to be most effective. Not everyone plays Moneyball in their free time (I don’t!).