[council] Open action item - SCI Review of Council Voting Threshholds

Wed Apr 27 21:48:31 UTC 2016

I’d also like to hear concrete examples of the purported problem.  Although my time on Council has been brief, I’m not sure that we have actually experienced any deadlock, other than the Bladel election kerfuffle which was quickly resolved once everyone went back to their camps to find out what happened.  

Has the current voting threshold arrangement resulted in any real problems that didn’t promptly self-resolve?

Best,

Paul

From: owner-council at gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of WUKnoben
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2016 06:54 AM
To: James M. Bladel; GNSO Council List
Subject: Re: [council] Open action item - SCI Review of Council Voting Threshholds

Hi,

as I wasn’t on council when this was raised as a potential item for the SCI to review maybe others have more insight on this.

In principle I see justification for a review after a voting scheme has been in use for a time period long enough to become acquainted with its implications. But I’m unsure what “long enough” could mean here and whether the council has already got to this level. I’m also of the opinion that a review – if required - shouldn’t just focus on the thresholds rather than the entire scheme.

In summary, I’m not against but would be happy to hear concrete rationales before final decision.

Best regards

Wolf-Ulrich

From: James M. Bladel <mailto:jbladel at godaddy.com>  

Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2016 2:05 AM

To: GNSO Council List <mailto:council at gnso.icann.org>  

Subject: [council] Open action item - SCI Review of Council Voting Threshholds

Council Colleagues -

Donna, Heather, and I have been working with Staff to do a bit of “spring cleaning” on our Action Items list. One of the open items from last year calls for the SCI to review GNSO Council Voting Thresholds.

The default voting threshold for the  GNSO is a simple majority,  >50% of each House.  Some specific votes (see ICANN Bylaws, Article X, Sec.3(9)) require a different voting threshold such as, for example, a “supermajority” threshold or an affirmative vote of more than one-fourth (1/4) vote of each House or majority of one House (create an Issue Report). All the current non-standardvoting thresholds relate to votes that are linked to a Policy Development Process, including for example: terminating an existing PDP, or modifying a PDP recommendation before sending it on to the Board. 

Currently, any vote that is not specifically excluded defaults to the simple majority vote. There was some discussion a while back (regarding Council adoption of Spec 13) that passing some motions with a simple majority were equivalent to amending existing (2007) PDPs, which would require a supermajority.  

Also, Council noted that we were frequently voting on situations that weren’t otherwise covered, including motions related to the IANA transition and Accountability work.  Some suggested that these topics warranted a supermajority threshold, and the Action Item to send this over to the SCI was born.  The Councilors who initially raised this issue have since moved on, and we completed the votes on IANA and Accountability using our existing procedures, so this item has been marked “pending" for several months.  

But I’d like to disposition the action item one way or the other.  So, if you believe this topic is still a concern and would like to volunteer to take the lead (see attached SCI Review Request), please respond by Friday 22 APR.  

Otherwise, if there’s no further interest,  we'll close out the action item.  

Thanks—

J.

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