Its not off topic. If you are going to elect a "Global Moderator", voters may want to know where they stand on the issue, and I might add its arguably the single most important issue facing this forum.
Well, if you are going to discuss the stances of individual moderators regarding it, then you are right. If you're going to discuss whether spam needs to be tackled and how, then it may very well be off-topic. Being a global moderator is not limited to this specific problem.I know know that the forum ticker talks about "the next phase of the beta forum software", but I will believe that there is a new forum software when I actually see it rolled out. 
FYI those features are implemented. Also you may not have noticed the new 'News' above regarding the new forum.I am a bit confused about the difference of moderator and staff.
The staff ranks: patroller, section moderator, global moderator, admin. The first two are going to be marked as 'Staff' in all sections excluding the ones that they are assigned to (does not include patroller). Example: If you go to the Speculation section, you will see 'Moderator' under my name.