>I am also real confused with the requirement for support from
>members of at
least 2 countries since you have indicated that voting
>may only take place from
within the voter's region. Isn't this then
>like asking people to have a
say in candidates for a district they
>are not even authorized to vote in? Couldn't
this even cause an
>undesired bias? As an example: Should I as a US citizen have
the
>right to have a say in who makes the ballot for a Canadian election
>even
though I can't even vote in a Canadian election? I don't think
>so.I think
you're misundertsnding/misreading it. According to the regions given, Canada and
the USA together form the North American region, and it is from this region that
a memebr is nominated - not from just Canada and from just the USA. Perhpas in the
future, when the Internet becomes truly global we'll have per-country nominations,
but as of yet you won't be voting in a "Canadian" election so thus the question of
your citizenship is a moot point.
In this case, the 2 country minimum for the base
of supporters insures that none of the people on the ballot from this region could
be Americans without Canadian support (or vice versa). This works to assure a broader
inital base of acceptance for any nominee
As has been noted in at least one other
post, some of the these very broad regions have limited penetration in terms of significant
Internet users (and therfore ICANN@Large members) and that in all of them ICANN@Large
membership is extremely dominated by only 1 country. The North American region is
the only one made up of only 2 countries, so the 2 country rule works well
there. The European region, in spite of domination by German members, has enough
diversity beyond that to do OK with that minimum because the nominees are more likely
to be from all across Europe (thanks to extensive Internet penetration). The other
3 areas - Africa, Asia/Pacific, Latin Americ/Carribean, on the other hand, are, IMNSHO
not as likely as Europe to get nominees outside their ICANN-dominating countries.
In the Asia/Pacific region, for example, it is too easy to have all the ballotted
nominees to be from Australia and Japan. In Latin America/Carribean it would Mexico
and Brazil. In these 3 regions I am thinking it would be better to up the minimum
country support to 3 or even 4.