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

Thu Apr 28 07:15:41 UTC 2016

Thanks for all the valuable input.
I join the “parking chorus”

Best regards

Wolf-Ulrich

From: Heather Forrest 
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2016 3:16 AM
To: Marika Konings ; Mary Wong ; Paul McGrady ; 'WUKnoben' ; 'James M. Bladel' ; 'GNSO Council List' 
Subject: Re: [council] Open action item - SCI Review of Council Voting Threshholds

As ever, Mary and Marika are able to make sense of the mess with their excellent memories and records, and based on their comments, it seems that we're unlikely to face the same situation again, or at least quite unlikely. If I've understood that correctly, and given the perennial theme of volunteer burnout, it seems we'd be best to park this one for now and use SCI's time for more pressing matters.

Best wishes,

Heather

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From: owner-council at gnso.icann.org <owner-council at gnso.icann.org> on behalf of Marika Konings <marika.konings at icann.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2016 8:48:35 AM
To: Mary Wong; Paul McGrady; 'WUKnoben'; 'James M. Bladel'; 'GNSO Council List'
Subject: Re: [council] Open action item - SCI Review of Council Voting Threshholds 

Adding to Mary’s 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 don’t know that this was a “problem” 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.

I’m 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

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

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

To:GNSO Council List

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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