Clearly ICANN is fearful of having an open vote for the
board and has structured the "Proposed Rules for Self-Nomination" as a first line
of defense.1. People who are nominated outside the Nominating Committee's
should be called public candidates, not self-nominees. The "self-nominee" designation
is degrading and a misnomer of the process by which one gets on the ballot through
this alternative to the Nomination Committee slate.
2. The Nominating Committee
nominees are given a thirty day first mover advantage on their campaigns. This is
unfair to the public candidates.
3. The At Large public candidates
have to jump through more hoops than any other nominees for the ICANN board.
Will the Nominating Committee candidates also have to show support for 10 percent
of their geographical region? Will they have to show support from more
than one country? If memory serves me, candidates for the three DNSO board
positions got on the ballot merely by collecting the names of ten supporters.
4.
The requirement that a publicly nominated candidate must have the support of 10 percent
of the At Large members in a geographic region may be an imposible threshold.
That number may exceed the total of people who actually vote.
5. There is
no justification for publishing the names of the supporters of a public candidate.
Surely that violates the right to privacy in an election. Candidates may wish
to publish the names of their supporters, but it should be at their option, not as
an obligation for participation on the ballot.
6. It certainly is appropriate to
ask the potential conflicts of interest in advance of election. This should
be asked of ALL nominees, including those put forward by the Nominating Committee
and those elected through the SOs. Indeed, to be fair, all sitting members
of ICANN board should proffer this information immediately.
7. Since ICANN
is a technical coordinating body, why not require information regarding the candidates
technical expertise.