[bc-gnso] Results of BC poll on DAGv4 comments

[Ron Andruff]

No foul, no harm, Philip.  I agree that we need more lead time on future
comments so that we don’t find ourselves in this predicament again.
Unfortunately, it appears that this fell through the cracks in the middle of
a hectic period, but I am glad that the BC was able to retrieve it and get
comments posted on DAGv4.

 

Kind regards,

 

RA

 

Ronald N. Andruff

President

 

RNA Partners, Inc.

220 Fifth Avenue

New York, New York 10001

+ 1 212 481 2820 ext. 11

 

  _____  

From: Phil Corwin [mailto:pcorwin at butera-andrews.com] 
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2010 5:52 PM
To: Ron Andruff; 'Steve DelBianco'; 'bc - GNSO list'
Subject: RE: [bc-gnso] Results of BC poll on DAGv4 comments

 

I would disagree that this exercise has proven the need to modify the BC
Charter to allow the Constituency to adopt a "majority position" when a
quorum ( a majority of BC members) has failed to exercise its voting rights.

 

Rather, I believe it has illustrated the need to develop a process for the
BC to take positions with a lead time substantially longer for review of a
draft position than one week before the filing deadline, and geared toward
finding the broadest possible consensus among BC members. That statement is
in no way critical of the individuals who developed the draft position, but
of the process. A longer lead time and a consensus-focused process is more
likely to garner a higher voter turnout.

 

Philip S. Corwin 
Partner 
Butera & Andrews 
1301 Pennsylvania Ave., NW 
Suite 500 
Washington, DC 20004

202-347-6875 (office) 

202-347-6876 (fax)

202-255-6172 (cell)

"Luck is the residue of design." -- Branch Rickey

 

 

  _____  

From: owner-bc-gnso at icann.org [mailto:owner-bc-gnso at icann.org] On Behalf Of
Ron Andruff
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2010 4:45 PM
To: 'Steve DelBianco'; 'bc - GNSO list'
Subject: RE: [bc-gnso] Results of BC poll on DAGv4 comments

Thanks for this update, Steve.  And thanks to the Ex Comm for seeing this
through on short notice according to our Charter.

 

Regarding the issue of quorum, I think this exercise has proven that we need
to modify the BC Charter, as has been discussed in the past, to accommodate
a lower threshold.  Clearly, it is difficult (particularly at this time of
year) to gather enough members to meet such a high hurdle and thus we should
add this element to the list when we do our Charter revision vis-à-vis
aligning all of the Charters of the NCSG constituencies.   

 

Thanks again for taking such expeditious action to enable the BC to post
DAGv4 Public Comments.

 

Kind regards,

 

RA

 

Ronald N. Andruff

President

 

RNA Partners, Inc.

220 Fifth Avenue

New York, New York 10001

+ 1 212 481 2820 ext. 11

 

  _____  

From: owner-bc-gnso at icann.org [mailto:owner-bc-gnso at icann.org] On Behalf Of
Steve DelBianco
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2010 3:29 PM
To: 'bc - GNSO list'
Subject: [bc-gnso] Results of BC poll on DAGv4 comments

 

From: Steve DelBianco, vice chair for policy coordination
To:      BC Members

( Background on this policy poll appears at the end of this email )

On 26-July, GNSO Secretariat (Glen de Saint Géry) downloaded and counted
ballots for the two BC position statements on DAGv4.

Glen reported there were 24 (twenty four) votes (incl 1 abstention) in the
bcvote at bizconst.org mailbox.  
Glen opened, logged, and counted each vote. The results:

a)  With respect to the "Points 1-3" there were 18 votes of "Support" and 4
votes of "Do not Support". (One person did not vote in this category)

b)  With respect to the "Rights Protection Mechanism" there were 18 votes of
"Support" and 5 votes of "Do not Support". 


***end of Glen’s report***

24 ballots represents 47% of 51 eligible members.   While the BC poll shows
significant majority support  (82% on points 1-3 and 78% on RPMs), we did
not reach the quorum required by our Charter, Section 7.4:


A position paper which has the support of at least a simple majority of 51%
of the eligible votes in favour will be deemed adopted by the Constituency
so long as the total number of members voting represents not less than a
quorum of 50% of paid-up members. Where a quorum is not reached the
Executive Committee will decide whether a re-vote, re-thinking of the
position or publication of a minority position is required and the process
will then repeat as appropriate.    http://www.bizconst.org/charter.htm


Before the results were in, the Executive Committee approved a process in
the event quorum was not achieved:

Since quorum was not achieved, the Executive Committee will submit the 2
position statements to ICANN as minority positions, per Section 7.4 of the
BC Charter.   That is, these positions were approved by a clear majority of
those voting, but the number of voters was 2 short of the required quorum of
26 (50% of 51eligible voters).

 

On the attached position for "Points 1-3",  18 BC members voted to support,
4 members voted "Do not Support,” and there was 1 abstention.  [attach
position]

On the attached position for "Rights Protection Mechanisms", 18 BC members
voted to support, while 5 members voted "Do not Support.”   [attach
position]


Using the description above, we will post these 2 position documents to
ICANN’s public comment forum today.   Each comment includes a note
explaining the voting and failure to reach quorum.

Last week, we alerted staff that the BC would be a few days late with our
comments. 


***  background emails below ***


From: Steve DelBianco <sdelbianco at netchoice.org>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:38:24 -0400
To: 'bc - GNSO list' <bc-gnso at icann.org>
Subject: Documents and ballot for BC Comments on DAGv4 (poll closes noon EDT
Friday 23-Jul-2010)

As described in our previous note (repeated below), the BC is now polling
members to determine support for proposed comments on Draft Applicant
Guidebook version 4 (DAGv4).

Attached are three documents: 

*** Comment part 1: DAGv4 BC points 1-3.pdf
Points 1thru 3:  This proposed comment is a restatement of prior BC comments
regarding: market differentiation; translations and IDN versions of gTLDs;
and community-based evaluation scoring.  Our Rapporteur Ron Andruff updated
these prior comments to reflect some recommendations of the latest economic
analysis provided to ICANN.    

*** Comment part 2:  DAGv4 BC points on RPMs.pdf
Rights Protection Mechanisms.   Sarah Deutsch and Jon Nevett collaborated on
this proposed comment, which is based upon the BC “minority statement” we
approved and submitted on a previous draft of the DAG.

***  A blank ballot form:  BC Polling Form 20-Jul-2010.doc, where you can
indicate support or non-support for each of these 2 proposed comments. 


Voting instructions for BC members:

Attached is your ballot form.   Please complete your ballot and save the
document to your local computer.   Then attach your saved ballot to an email
and send to bcvote at bizconst.org  

Please use the subject line "DAG4 Comments Vote".  You will receive an auto
confirmation
of your email.

This mailbox will retain all the ballot emails.  Nobody on the Executive
Committee has access to this mailbox at this time.

When the voting closes at 12:00 noon EDT on Friday 23-July-2010, we will
arrange for our Secretariat (or another neutral party) to access and tally
the ballots.

Reminder:  please submit your ballot by 12:00 noon EDT on Friday
23-July-2010.

Thanks to all who contributed to these draft comments.


------ Forwarded Message
From: Steve DelBianco <sdelbianco at netchoice.org>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:14:38 -0400
To: 'bc - GNSO list' <bc-gnso at icann.org>
Cc: "excomm at bizconst.org" <excomm at bizconst.org>
Subject: Process and polling for BC Comments on DAGv4

From: Marilyn Cade (BC Chair) and Steve DelBianco (vice chair for policy
coordination)
to:      BC members

Comments on DAGv4 are due to ICANN on 21-July.  Ron Andruff volunteered to
be BC Rapporteur and worked with Sarah Deutsch to circulate a draft on
14-July. 

For the last week, about a dozen BC members debated and exchanged alternate
drafts via email.  During that discussion,  at least 5 BC members expressed
opposition to the comment draft.  If opposition reaches 15% of paid
membership, section 7.4 in our Charter is triggered:


7.4. Approval where there is continued disagreement
Where the discussion mechanism indicates a split in the Constituency of more
than 15% of the number of members, there will then be a vote (typically by
e-mail) on the position. Only the designated representatives of members will
be eligible to vote.

A position paper which has the support of at least a simple majority of 51%
of the eligible votes in favour will be deemed adopted by the Constituency
so long as the total number of members voting represents not less than a
quorum of 50% of paid-up members. Where a quorum is not reached the
Executive Committee will decide whether a re-vote, re-thinking of the
position or publication of a minority position is required and the process
will then repeat as appropriate.
http://www.bizconst.org/charter.htm


The ability of the BC to comment on DAG 4 is important to many of the
members. 

The time line has to be modified to do follow the polling process in our
charter.

The majority of your executive committee supports giving a clean document to
members to vote/poll in a shortened time frame.

We respect that some of you may not be in agreement with the decision.
However, we see no other way to achieve a submission within a reasonable
time frame. Although it will be 2 days late, it will be within a reasonable
time frame to be considered by ICANN. 

Ron Andruff is working with a few others on a clean document that he will
distribute by 4pm EDT today.  The goal is to for this document to get as
close as we can to a consensus that all BC members can vote on.

Ron may also distribute additional section(s) that would be subject to a
separate vote.

We will then conduct a formal members poll to close by noon EDT, Friday
23-July.

We understand that this is not the best option.  But given time pressures,
and the work that has gone into this from all members, we want to ensure
that we do all we can to have as much agreement on a core submission as we
can, and that we find ways to hear the voices and concerns of all members.

------ End of Forwarded Message

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