[council] Voting rules for Task forces

[Bruce Tonkin]

Hello All,

I have consulted with the ICANN General Counsel, in response to
questions about 
who can vote and how votes are counted for the task forces.

>From Annex A: section 5 (a):
http://www.icann.org/general/bylaws.htm#AnnexA 
"Upon voting to appoint a task force, the Council shall invite each of
the constituencies of the GNSO to appoint one individual to participate
in the task force. Additionally, the Council may appoint up to three
outside advisors to sit on the task force. (Each task force member is
referred to in this Annex as a "Representative" and collectively, the
"Representatives"). The Council may increase the number of
Representatives per constituency that may sit on a task force in its
discretion in circumstances that it deems necessary or appropriate."

With respect to voting on a task force, each of the constituencies and
each of the appointed outside advisors may vote on any issue.

Note that with respect to the WHOIS task forces, the Council decided:
"That for the purpose of the WHOIS task forces, constituencies be
allowed to appoint more than one person to listen in on teleconferences
and to participate in the mailing list, but in any single teleconference
or physical meeting, there is only one person from the constituency to
represent the constituency's views."

With respect to WHOIS task force 2, Amadeu Abril I Abril was appointed
by Council in the  meeting of 20 November 2002 as an outside advisor.
See minutes:
http://www.gnso.icann.org/meetings/minutes-gnso-20nov03.shtml 

Thus WHOIS task force 2 has a total of 7 votes.  Amadeu has one vote,
and each of the constituencies has one vote.

With respect to the other task forces, there are a total of 6 votes (one
per constituency).

A task force may use discretion as to when to hold votes on an issue -
and in many cases such votes can be used to indicate support for/against
a particular proposal as part of the process of developing a consensus
position.  These votes are often called "straw" votes in other forums.

The final task force report should contain a clear statement of any
supermajority vote position of the task force on any issue.   When a
supermajority vote is not reached, a clear statement of all constituency
positions espoused by task force members should be included.

Note that with respect to advice from an outside advisor in a final
report - the advice should be accompanied by a detailed statement of the
advisors' qualifications and relevant experience and potential conflicts
of interest.

Liaisons from advisory committees such as ALAC, GAC, and Security and
Stability, that may attend task force meetings and participate on
mailing lists, do not have a vote.  The liaisons may report on the work
being undertaken within those committees that is relevant to the task
force, and back to the committees on the work being undertaken in the
task force (ie the role is liaising between the two independent groups)
.   The Advisory Committees report their feedback with respect to a new
GNSO policy, directly to the Board (presumably as part of the public
comment process prior to the ICANN Board meeting to consider the new
policy).

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin