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

Marika Konings marika.konings at icann.org
Wed Apr 27 22:48:35 UTC 2016


Adding to Mary¹s examples, the first one would likely not occur again
following the adoption of the Policy & Implementation recommendations which
have provided the GNSO Council with three new processes to deal with
implementation (or other) issues, each of which has its own specific voting
thresholds which are also included in the ICANN Bylaws. At the time of the
Spec 13 question there was only the option of embarking on a PDP or deciding
on the issue with a simple majority vote. The Council now has a number of
additional processes to choose from. As a reminder, you will find the GNSO
Policy Processes cheat sheet attached.

Best regards,

Marika

From:  <owner-council at gnso.icann.org> on behalf of Mary Wong
<mary.wong at icann.org>
Date:  Wednesday 27 April 2016 at 16:27
To:  Paul McGrady <policy at paulmcgrady.com>, 'WUKnoben'
<wolf-ulrich.knoben at t-online.de>, "James M. Bladel" <jbladel at godaddy.com>,
'GNSO Council List' <council at gnso.icann.org>
Subject:  Re: [council] Open action item - SCI Review of Council Voting
Threshholds

Hello Paul and everyone,

I don¹t know that this was a ³problem² inasmuch as several then-Councilors
felt some discomfort at the thought that the voting threshold for a topic
(Spec 13) on which the Board (through the NGPC) had requested GNSO Council
input as to whether the proposed implementation was consistent or not with
GNSO policy was a simple majority, whereas adopting the original PDP policy
recommendations upon which the NGPC request was based required a higher
threshold.

In somewhat similar vein, the recent deliberations of this Council over the
vote for the Final CCWG-Accountability Proposal involved some discussion
over the simple majority threshold, this time I believe in relation to the
importance of the topic concerned.

I¹m not aware that there have been other, similar situations where
Councilors have expressed concerns or unease, but I offer these two recent
examples in the hope that they are helpful.

Thanks and cheers
Mary

   
Mary Wong
Senior Policy Director
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
Email: mary.wong at icann.org
Telephone: +1-603-5744889


From: <owner-council at gnso.icann.org> on behalf of Paul McGrady
<policy at paulmcgrady.com>
Date: Wednesday, April 27, 2016 at 14:48
To: 'WUKnoben' <wolf-ulrich.knoben at t-online.de>, "'James M. Bladel'"
<jbladel at godaddy.com>, 'GNSO Council List' <council at gnso.icann.org>
Subject: RE: [council] Open action item - SCI Review of Council Voting
Threshholds

I¹d also like to hear concrete examples of the purported problem.  Although
my time on Council has been brief, I¹m 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 didn¹t 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 wasn¹t 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 I¹m unsure what ³long enough² could mean here and whether
the council has already got to this level. I¹m also of the opinion that a
review ­ if required - shouldn¹t just focus on the thresholds rather than
the entire scheme.

 

In summary, I¹m 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 ³spring
cleaning² 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 ³supermajority²
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
weren¹t 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 ³pending" for several months.

 

But I¹d 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 there¹s no further interest,  we'll close out the action item.

 

Thanks‹

 

J.


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