[gnso-osc] GCOT Transmittal to OSC: Voting Abstentions

["Ken Bour" <ken.bour@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

OSC Members:

 

Forwarding this email to the OSC per Chuck's request...  

 

Ken Bour

=======

 

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
Description: MS-Word document

Attachment: GNSO Ops Procs Section 4-Voting (OSC Final-1 Mar 2010).doc
Description: MS-Word document

Attachment: GNSO Recorded Abstentions & Reasons-2009 (OSC Final-1 Mar 2010).doc
Description: MS-Word document