Paragraph 9 of the staff recommendation appears to contradict the fundamental
philosophy as
well as the mechanics recommended by the Membership Advisory Committee
as reflected in its
report to ICANN's Berlin meeting. Here are the competing
recommendations:The MAC:
11. Any individual who is a Member
may stand for election as an
at-large Director. In the event
that the number of candidates is
so large as to discourage careful
consideration by voters, then
ICANN shall have the option of requiring
all candidates to provide
evidence of a reasonable amount of support
from other Members for
their candidacy...
In contrast,
the staff recommends:
9. To obtain a place
on the final ballot,
an
individual seeking self-nomination
must meet the following conditions:
a.Support from 10% of the At Large
Members in her/his geographic
region,
The
MAC approach encourages "bottom-up" governance and allows for more voter choice.
The staff recommendation creates unnecessary and improper barriers to nomination.
Limitations
on voter choice (filters) are inherently suspect and should only
be allowed upon a showing of real
and significant need, especially when the electorate
is as sophisticated and involved as ours.
Finally, there are exellent mechanisms
for determining voter preferences in multi-candidate races
(even where there
are MANY candidates for a single seat). The Center For Voting and
Democracy
suggests the INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING (IRV) system
http://www.fairvote.org/irv/index.html
in which voters are asked to rank their choices (1-X).
The computer does
the rest. The Center's rationale is as follows:
Instant Runoff Voting is a winner-take-all system that makes
it more likely that a winning candidate will receive a
majority of votes rather than a simple plurality. In plurality
voting -- as used in most U.S. elections -- candidates
can
win with less than a majority when there
are more than two
candidates running for the
office. In contrast, IRV is more
likely to elect
a majority candidate while still allowing
voters
to support a candidate who is not a front-runner. IRV is
a sensible method in single winner elections.
A full
explanation of the system is on the Center's website
http://www.fairvote.org/irv/index.html.
I strongly recommend the use of the IRV voting system.