I've posted some preliminary, and purely personal, comments
at ICANNWatch.Here are the key points:
* 10% is far too high a bar. The
number of supporters should be a percentage or a fixed number, whichever is lower.
And the bar should not be set unduly high. 100 supporters seems like a very
reasonable number to get someone on the ballot. Since I assume the ballot
will be STV or some other preference system, haveing a larger number of candidates
is not a serious problem.
* It's important that all candidates whether selected
by the NomCom or by the open process, should have the same amount of time to campaign.
* I am uncomfortable with the suggestion that voters from each region will only
vote for candidates from their own region. This is not how any other part of ICANN
works. Members of the functional constituencies, such as the ASO or PSO, have to
produce regionally diverse sets of Board Members, but everyone in the group votes
on all candidates.
* One consequence of this geographic division is to make "slating"
impossible – thus increasing the odds of entrenching existing majorities. Another
is to make representation of geographically distributed ideological minorities unlikely.
* I don't see how dividing up the electorate will scale up if ICANN ever does
seat the nine at-large Board members who were part of the original design. There
are only five regions, and nine doesn't fit well into five.
A. Michael Froomkin
| Professor of Law | froomkin@law.tm
U.
Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA
+1 (305) 284-4285
| +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) | http://www.law.tm
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