[gnso-osc-csg] FW: GCOT Transmittal to OSC: Voting Abstentions
________________________________ From: Gomes, Chuck Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 3:28 AM To: gnso-osc-ops@xxxxxxxxx Subject: FW: GCOT Transmittal to OSC: Voting Abstentions I thought these were already sent to the OSC members several days ago but, if not, here they are. Chuck ________________________________ From: Ken Bour [mailto:ken.bour@xxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 8:42 AM To: Gomes, Chuck; philip.sheppard@xxxxxx Cc: 'Ray Fassett'; 'Ron Andruff'; Robert Hoggarth; julie.hedlund@xxxxxxxxx Subject: GCOT Transmittal to OSC: Voting Abstentions Chuck & Philip: I hope it is OK with Ray and Ron, but given that we have made a few changes to various documents, I thought it might be helpful to construct a new email (from Ray's prior ones) that could be transmitted to OSC Members (see below). I set it up from Ray and it now references all 3 documents that pertain to Voting Abstentions. Incidentally, the attached doc titles now include "OSC Final-1 Mar 2010" to show that they belong in a set. Note that I already changed the quorum language in the §4.5.4-c per an earlier email exchange, so that issue does not have to be revisited. I also modified Ray's first email to explain that there were minor changes made to sections 4.2 and 4.3 for consistency with 4.5 (shown in redlined text). Hopefully, if you concur, you can remove this preamble and forward the contents directly to the OSC list. Ken === OSC Members: I have a series of work products from the GCOT ready your review. To this e-mail, I have attached three documents: 1) An Executive Summary intended to provide the OSC with the GCOT's thought processes and rationale in designing the attached abstention provisions that we are recommending be included in the GNSO Operating Procedures as a replacement for Section 4-Voting. 2) Section 4 Voting of the Council Rules of Procedure. We are asking for the OSC to review and recommend Section 4.5-Abstentions to the Council for its review and consideration as part the Nairobi meeting. The entire Section 4 is included for two purposes: (a) so that Section 4.5 can be read in context; and (b) to reflect a few changes in 4.2-4.3 that were required to maintain consistency (redlined). Since Cairo, the Work Team, along with ICANN Staff support, has invested considerable time and effort in understanding the abstention issues involved from a Councilor perspective, an SG/Constituency perspective including differences in Charters, as well as seeking Staff General Counsel advice based upon the history of this topic over the years to finally land at the language we have per the attached. While we realize it unlikely that the abstention language can be brought to an actual vote of the Council as part of Nairobi, we have taken the liberty of providing to the OSC a draft motion contained below for OSC consideration: SAMPLE COUNCIL RESOLUTION: WHEREAS the GNSO Council Operations Work Team (GCOT) has developed a set of abstention provisions that it recommends be incorporated into the GNSO Operations Procedures as Sub-Section 4.5 (part of 4.0-Voting); and WHEREAS the GCOT has also identified other voting procedures within Section 4.0 that it recommends be amended to be consistent with its proposed abstentions provisions; and WHEREAS the Operations Steering Committee (OSC) has reviewed all of these revisions and recommends them for adoption by the GNSO Council. RESOLVED, that the GNSO Council accepts Version ___ (TBD) of the GNSO Operating Procedures, including the recommended revisions to Section 4 and its new Sub-Section 4.5. RESOLVED FURTHER, that the GNSO Council directs Staff to post this document for twenty-one (21) days in the ICANN Public Comment Forum and reserves the right to modify these procedures upon conclusion of that public comment period. 3) Analysis of 2009 Abstention Voting. This exercise was for the purpose of interpreting how the Section 4.5-Abstentions language would have affected actual Councilor abstention votes if it had been in place at the time. While admittedly some interpretation by the Work Team, we think this was a useful analysis that we want to share with the OSC as part of its review of the Section 4.5 language. I should mention that Work Team members debated whether to redact individual names from this analysis for the reason of potentially being a distraction to the real purpose of the analysis (which was to evaluate the recorded reason for the abstention against the Section 4.5 language). We decided not to redact names for the reason that the voting information is public information anyway. I am mentioning this for two reasons: (a) a heads up for OSC members to focus upon the intention of the analysis vs. "who" performed the abstention and (b) for OSC members to consider, also, whether or not to redact names if it is decided to share the analysis more broadly, such as with GNSO Council members or other such public disclosure. Also, we are seeking OSC advice with regards to Section 4.4-Absentee Voting (see embedded comment attached). The Work Team is strongly considering taking a close look at this language that may lead to a recommendation. One of our questions was: What do members of the OSC think? Is the current language for Absentee voting acceptable? For example, the recent sort of emergency Board Seat 13 vote was excluded from the ability for absentee voting. Is this appropriate? We are questioning it and as part of this effort and seeking OSC member advice with regards to the language as currently written. Lastly, we have made quite a bit of progress on the Statement of Interest document which we intend to incorporate into the Rules of Procedure. We feel this is ready for OSC review, including having received ICANN staff legal counsel input. I will be sending this to you in the near future under separate cover. The Work Team respectfully requests prompt attention from the OSC to the Abstention Language as contained in Section 4.5 of the attached document, including if possible getting this language in front of GNSO Council members as part of their agenda for discussion in Nairobi. Upon review, OSC members will see the approach we took with regards to Abstentions primarily on two fronts: 1) How can the reason for Council member abstention be remedied at the SG/Constituency level; and 2) how can the outcome of reducing the denominator at the time of Council vote due to an abstention be the rare exception. While our Work Team does not necessarily conduct its business by way of formal voting measures, I believe it is appropriate for me to communicate as the Chair that we had what I considered as supermajority consensus to these 2 points which was the basis of our work the leading to the final product as now being recommended to the OSC. Please let me know if any questions. Ray Fassett Chair GCOT Attachment:
GNSO Ops Procs Section 4-Voting Exec Summary (OSC Final-1 Mar 2010).doc Attachment:
GNSO Ops Procs Section 4-Voting (OSC Final-1 Mar 2010).doc Attachment:
GNSO Recorded Abstentions & Reasons-2009 (OSC Final-1 Mar 2010).doc |