RE: [gnso-osc] FOR ADOPTION June 4 GCOT Ops Section 4 - voting

["Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It's not a big issue for me Ray.  I was just trying to understand the
reasoning.

 

Chuck

 

From: Ray Fassett [mailto:ray@xxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 3:57 PM
To: Gomes, Chuck; 'Philip Sheppard'
Cc: gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [gnso-osc] FOR ADOPTION June 4 GCOT Ops Section 4 - voting

 

Chuck, the issue of a Councilor handling more than one proxy (a concept
referred to as "stacking" I believe during our deliberations) was
discussed by the WT to land where the current recommended language is.
While your point is credible, as the Chair of the GCOT appreciating the
discussions the WT had around this subject matter, I do not feel
comfortable recommending a modification absent discussion by the WT as a
whole...which I am more than happy to initiate at the direction of the
OSC.

 

Ray

________________________________

From: Gomes, Chuck [mailto:cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 3:30 PM
To: Ray Fassett; Philip Sheppard
Cc: gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [gnso-osc] FOR ADOPTION June 4 GCOT Ops Section 4 - voting

 

Thanks Ray.  Please see below.

 

Chuck

 

From: owner-gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Ray Fassett
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 1:34 PM
To: 'Philip Sheppard'
Cc: gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [gnso-osc] FOR ADOPTION June 4 GCOT Ops Section 4 - voting

 

Philip, excellent feedback and again wish to reiterate my appreciation
to the thorough review of our work product by interested parties.

 

To Chuck's first point, I believe he has identified an unintended
consequence of the present wording, namely that a councilor wishing to
abstain from vote not count towards quorum.  I wish to offer this
friendly amendment to the wording to remedy:

 

"A Councilor abstaining on a vote, if present at the meeting, does not
count towards quorum calculationsfor any all actions of the GNSO
Council; however, the existence of a proxy does not count towards quorum
calculations for any action of the GNSO Council."

 

Here is the clean version of the sentence:

 

"A Councilor abstaining on a vote, if present at the meeting, does count
in quorum calculations; however, the existence of a proxy does not count
towards quorum for any action of the GNSO Council."

[Gomes, Chuck] Works for me.

 

 

To Chuck's second point, there is the option for a proxy vote to go to
the House NCA.  We ran through a number of what-if scenarios as it
pertains to inserting the proxy mechanism into the procedures.  On the
one hand, we recognized this to be a highly senstive subject over the
years.  On the other, we felt the benefits of vote by proxy should be
incorporated.  We decided we could not script every possible scenario
within the RoP.  We chose to take a conservative approach to its
introduction while at the same realizing the Rules should be a living
document subject to real world activity, frequency, and experiences with
modifications appropriately based on this from the language we have
proposed.[Gomes, Chuck]  I still don't understand what the problem is
with one Councilor exercising two proxy votes as long as the SG
direction on how to vote is documented.  I don't have a problem with the
NCA casting a proxy vote, but I think it will generally be logistically
easy to exercise proxies through someone in the same SG/Constituency.

 

To Chuck's third point, this is covered in 4.5.4-b (last bullet) which I
copied below:  

 

"For a Temporary Alternate, identification of the individual who will
serve as a substitute for the abstaining Councilor.  If not already
published and available, a short bio and Statement/Disclosure of
Interest should be prepared by the Temporary Alternate and delivered to
the GNSO Secretariat in advance of any discussion or voting scheduled to
take place."

[Gomes, Chuck] I missed that.  Thanks.

 

Please let me know if this response suffices or any additional
clarification needed.

 

Sincerely,

 

Ray Fassett

Chair

GCOT

 

________________________________

From: owner-gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Philip Sheppard
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 3:50 AM
To: 'Ray Fassett'
Cc: gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gnso-osc] FOR ADOPTION June 4 GCOT Ops Section 4 - voting

 

Ray,

would you be so kind as to answer these questions from Chuck?

While we await the response OSC approval is suspended.

Philip

 

 

________________________________

From: owner-gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Gomes, Chuck
Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 9:38 PM
To: Philip Sheppard; gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [gnso-osc] FOR ADOPTION June 4 GCOT Ops Section 4 - voting

Philip and all,

 

Please accept my apologies for not getting to this by June 4th.

 

Let me first compliment the writer of these procedures and the WT.  In
my opinion, they are very well written and excellent thought went into
these.  Moreover, I believe that solve a very important problem that we
have had in the GNSO for several years.

 

Referring to the next to last paragraph of Section 4.5.3.b, Proxy
Voting, I want to make sure understand the rationale of the following:
"A Councilor abstaining on a vote does not count towards quorum
calculations for any action of the GNSO Council.  In addition, the
existence of a proxy does not count towards quorum calculations for any
action of the GNSO Council."  Is the assumption that the abstaining
Councilor might still be present in the meeting so the desire is to not
duplicate the quorum count?  If so, that makes sense.

 

I would also like to understand the rationale for the following , again
from Section 4.5.3.b, Proxy Voting: "No GNSO Council member is permitted
to exercise more than one proxy vote for any specific action/motion
before the Council.  If an appointing organization finds itself with
more than one abstention situation to be remedied, the appointing
organization must allocate its proxy votes to as many other Councilors
as required such that no individual Councilor registers more than one
proxy vote at a time."  It may not be a very frequent happening, but
what if two Councilors from the RySG needed to request a proxy vote; in
that case it would seem easiest for both Councilors to assign their
proxy vote to the third RySG Councilor.  Why is that not allowed?

 

In Section 4.5.4.a, 'Notification by Councilor', in the case of an
alternate Councilor, shouldn't we also add email address and submission
of a Statement of Interest from the Alternate?

 

Chuck

 

From: owner-gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Philip Sheppard
Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 4:10 AM
To: gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gnso-osc] FOR ADOPTION June 4 GCOT Ops Section 4 - voting

 

Dear OSC members,

FOR REVIEW AND ADOPTION by June 4

 

Please find attached  a revised Section  4 of the GNSO operating manual
on voting and thresholds .

This has been revised by the GCOT based on earlier OSC input.

 

Below are notes from GCOT on how they addressed the issues raised (some
of which overlap with section  3.8  on  absences .

But for the process of OSC adoption this will be the subject of a
separate mail).

Philip

 

________________________________

To:  OSC Members

 

In early March 2010, in preparation for the ICANN Nairobi meetings, the
GNSO Council Operations Team (GCOT) submitted to the OSC a new Chapter
4.0-Voting that it recommended be included within the GNSO Operating
Procedures (GOP).   As you will recall, the major purpose of that
document was a new set of provisions for handling abstentions.
Accompanying the new GOP chapter, the GCOT also attached an Executive
Summary which discussed the major implications of abstentions as they
apply to GNSO Council voting and explained the GCOT's rationale in
developing its recommendations.   

 

During the OSC's Nairobi session, several questions were raised by OSC
members that caused the GCOT to revisit and revise certain sections of
the document.   In addition, as a result of the team's continued
deliberations, additional changes have been made although the underlying
architecture of the abstention remedies remains intact.   

 

For the purposes of informing the OSC as to the revisions made, we
thought it might be useful to outline them in the following section
versus attempting to rewrite the original Executive Summary (attached),
which otherwise continues to be an accurate rationale for the GCOT's
work on abstentions. 

 

Summary of GCOT Amendments since Nairobi: 

 

1)      New Section 3.8-Absences and Vacancies

 

At the time the original Section 4.5-Abstentions was drafted, it
included applying the Temporary Alternate remedy for certain absence
conditions.   During its review, the General Counsel's office
recommended that, instead of confusing absences and abstentions, a new
section be added to the GOP to cover absences.  That section was not
completed prior to Nairobi; however, it is included in this
transmission.   The title was subsequently changed to, "Section
3.8-Absences and Vacancies" as a result of a question raised during
Nairobi, that is, "Do Councilor vacancies cause the voting denominator
to change?" 

 

The GCOT recognized that, while vacancy procedures exist in the Bylaws
{Article X, Section 3(3)}, nothing is stated about what happens to the
voting thresholds in such situations.  Certainly a permanent vacancy
would ultimately be resolved by electing a replacement; however, there
might be a period of vacancy before the new Councilor takes his/her
seat.  During such transitions, the GCOT is recommending that the
Temporary Alternate remedy be made available to appointing
organizations.  Section 3.8 was amended to address temporary vacancies
and, as OCS members will note, it also covers planned and unplanned
absences as well as leaves of absence.  

 

2)      A second issue raised in Nairobi was the need for a procedure
that allows Councilors to provide a reason or explanation when voting
"Yes" or "No."  There is a prevailing perception that to offer an
explanation requires an abstention.   To clarify this subject, the GCOT
elected to modify the GOP (see Section 4.3.2) to provide that, while
Councilors are not required to give a reason for a "No" or "Yes" vote,
it is permissible and such explanations will be recorded in the minutes.


 

3)      A third question raised in Nairobi was, "Did the GCOT consider
the concept of a 'Permanent' Alternate?  Staff responded that General
Counsel's advice was to ensure that any application of "Temporary
Alternate" be incident specific and limited in duration; however, there
is nothing in the procedures that would prevent a SG/C from selecting an
individual who is, more or less, "on call" to become a TA whenever that
remedy is needed.   

 

4)      After further deliberation, the GCOT determined that, due to the
unique challenges presented by the Nominating Committee Appointees (NCA)
in not having "appointing organizations" as defined in the procedures,
it would be logistically impractical to involve the Houses in approving
remedies for abstentions.  The team decided to rewrite the provisions
for House NCAs to permit Proxy Voting and Temporary Alternate remedies
that are automatically activated (based on conditions and rules) without
requiring action by the Houses or the Nominating Committee.  

 

5)      The term "Appointing Organization" was needed in Section 3.8,
but it had only been defined in Section 4.5.   In order to permit the
use of this terminology throughout the GOP, Staff will be recommending a
new "Definitions" section to be included in Chapter 1.0.  Staff will
also be recommending several additional GOP improvements including a
Table of Contents, a Document Revisions section, and placeholders for
new chapters that are in process (e.g. Chapter 5.0-Statements and
Disclosures of Interest and Chapter 6.0-GNSO Work Prioritization).  

 

The GCOT hopes that the above summary of changes will be instructive for
OSC members in reviewing the revised Chapter 4.0-Voting and Section
3.8-Absences & Vacancies.  

 

The GCOT's expectation is that the OSC, in its review process, may make
certain non-substantive amendments to these documents; however, it
requests that any substantive changes be remanded to the team for
further deliberation.  

 

If the OSC needs additional explanation or rationale for any of attached
procedures, please let us know.  On behalf of the GCOT members, we would
like to thank the members of the OSC for their support and feedback to
our efforts over the past 15 months.

 

Sincerely,

 

Ray Fassett

Chair

GCOT