[council] Council wide Nominations are closed - Part 2 Each House determines a Candidate

Rosette, Kristina krosette at cov.com
Thu Oct 15 11:25:14 UTC 2009


To my recollection, none of our previous elections while I have been on Council have been public.  I thought I'd missed the rationale for holding it publicly.  I've gone back and reviewed the messages I could find, but haven't seen one.  I had thought we would be voting privately in the week beforehand with the results announced at the meeting.

I object to our having to hold the election as a roll call vote.  I believe all Councilors should be permitted to cast votes privately.  Casting open ballots will not be conducive to the improved working relationship that many of us have articulated a desire to develop.  Moreover, given that I have found the environment at ICANN meetings generally (including public Council meetings) to be hostile, I believe casting those votes publicly is more likely than not to exacerbate that problem.

In sum, I want to vote privately as we've done in the past and have the results announced at the Council meeting.  Doing so has the extra benefit of having a definitive result at the Council meeting (assuming there is a clear winner); no delay from absentee balloting will occur.

K


Kristina Rosette
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----- Original Message -----
From: owner-council at gnso.icann.org <owner-council at gnso.icann.org>
To: Council GNSO <council at gnso.icann.org>
Sent: Thu Oct 15 03:23:01 2009
Subject: Re: [council] Council wide Nominations are closed - Part 2 Each House determines a Candidate


Hi,

I wanted to ad a few more details to this part of the process.

On 15 Oct 2009, at 08:01, Glen de Saint Géry wrote:

> B. PROPOSED SCHEDULE FOR THE VOTING
>
> For this election, the voting will take place at the public Council  
> meeting in Seoul on Wednesday, 28 October 2009.
>
> Avri Doria, current GNSO Council chair, will serve as non-voting  
> chair of the bicameral Council meeting on 28 October until such time  
> as a new chair is elected, at which time the new chair will assume  
> the chair responsibilities.
>
> If an absentee ballot is required to complete the chair's election,  
> this will be a 24 hour ballot scheduled to end on 29 October. If no  
> chair has been elected by the end of the Annual meeting on 30  
> October, the vice-chairs will assume the chair responsibilities as  
> defined in the Bylaws and a runoff will be scheduled as determined  
> in the Council Procedures.
>
> The winning candidate needs 60% of the votes of each house.
>
> The Council shall inform the Board and the Community appropriately  
> and post the election results on the GNSO website within 2 business  
> days following the election.
>
> In the event that the GNSO Council has not elected a GNSO Council  
> Chair by the end of the previous Chair's term, the Vice-Chairs will  
> serve as Interim GNSO Co-Chairs until a successful election can be  
> held.

Since this election will be done in the meeting, I am planning to hold  
it as an open vote via a roll call.  This will be the second major  
item on the agenda, after a vote on any amendments to the proposed  
Operating Procedures the new Operating Procedures as possibly amended.

I am hoping that all of the council members will be available for the  
vote, either in person or via remote communications, so that the  
election can be completed on the Wednesday, even if it needs to go to  
two rounds.  If we do not have everyone available for the call, then  
we will need to go a 24 hour absentee ballot on each round.  This  
means that the first round would not end until Thursday morning.  If  
necessary we could schedule a second round for Thursday, though we  
would then need to allow for voting at the Thursday meeting, which  
would be an exception to our normal practice.  In this case a second  
absentee ballot would end on Friday afternoon.  In any case, the goal  
is to enable the election of the new chair, if at all possible, by the  
end of the Seoul meeting.

As I said, I am hoping we can avoid needing to do an absentee ballot  
so I hope that any council member who cannot attend the meeting can  
participate remote in al least the first part of the Wednesday meeting.

Assuming we have a different candidate from each House, each council  
member polled would in turn be able to vote for:

Candidate chosen by Contracted Parties House (CP House
or, Candidate chosen by Non Contracted Parties House (NCP House)
or, None of the above

(In the case of a single candidate chosen by both Houses, the vote  
would resemble the second round procedure below)

The votes would be tabulated separately according to House, though the  
roll will be called alphabetically.

To  succeed a candidate needs 60% or each house.  This means  5 out of  
7 votes for the CP House and 8 out of 13 votes for the NCP House.

  - If either the CP House candidate  or NCP House candidate get 60%  
of each House, he or she will have been elected and will take over as  
chair of the meeting at that point.

- If 'None of the above' gets 60% of each house, then the election is  
halted and rescheduled for a month later.  In this case the two vice- 
chairs will take over as interim co-chairs at the end of the week.

- If neither of the candidates (or "none of the above") gets the  
required 60% of each house, then a second round is called for.

Assuming every one is present on Wednesday morning, we can hold this  
second round vote immediately, otherwise we can hold it on Thursday.

The second roll call vote will be between:

The candidate who received the greatest combined percentage of the  
votes when the results of each house is summed to the other  
(Percentage from CP House + Percentage from NCP House)
or, None of the above

If the candidate receives 60% votes of each House ( out of 7 votes for  
the CP House and 8 out of 13 votes for the NCP House) then that  
candidate has been elected and will take over as chair of the meeting  
at that point.

Otherwise, the election then the election is halted and rescheduled  
for a month later.  In this case the two vice-chairs will take over as  
interim co-chairs at the end of the week.

I believe this process follows from the rules set for the election of  
chairs in the new bi-cameral council.  I very much look forward to  
completing a successful election on Wednesday morning.

Thanks,



a.







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