To the ICANN Board:The most contriversial element of the proposed self-nomination
rules is the 10% petition criteria.
While the Board, and the membership, has a
valid interest in ensuring that the ballot is not too grossly large, the membership
also has a strong interest in ensuring that there is a variety of choices available
on the final ballot.
Therefore, here is my recommendation:
The Nominating Committee
(NOMCOM) shall nominate a minimum of two and maximum of five candidates from each
region.
During the self nomination phase, a minimum of six, and a maximum
of ten self-nominated candidates will be placed on the ballot of each region.
The ten to be selected will be determined by the number of nominations recieved,
with the ten most popular recieving the place on the ballot, or in the event of a
tie for a ballot position, the broadness of international support shall be used as
a tiebreaker.
The definition of international support breadth, in this
case, shall be: "The total support recieved if all of the supporters from the
most popular nation of support for this candidate are deducted, regardless of the
individual candidate's country of origin."
(i.e. John from England has 12 UK supporters,
3 French supporters, and 17 German supporters. Pierre has 23 French supporters,
3 UK supporters, and 6 German supporters. John's "breadth of support"
is the sum of his UK and French support [15]. Pierre's is the sum of his UK
and German support [9]. John wins the tiebreaker.)
The minimum threshold
shall be 2.5% nomination within the region, but in no case shall less than six self-nominated
candidates be placed on the ballot, even if no person achieves the 2.5% minimum,
nor shall more than ten be placed, even if more than ten achieve the 2.5% minimum
threshold.
(e.g. if eight people have 2.5% or more, then all 8 get on
the ballot. If 2 people have 2.5%, then the top six get on the ballot (even
though four of them do not have 2.5%). If 14 people get 2.5%, the top ten get
on the ballot. I hope this is clear enough.)
For the actual elections,
an instant runoff voting methodology shall be used. Each member shall rank
up to six candidates in order of preference, but shall not be required to use all
six choices.
During the first round, the first place votes for each candidate
shall be totaled, and ranked.
If no person has recieved a majority of
the votes cast, the candidate with the fewest votes recieved shall be eliminated,
and any votes cast for that person shall be transfered to the next most popular remaining
candidate on that voter's ballot.
(i.e. if I vote for Jones, Smith, Johnson,
and Walters in that order, and Jones is eliminated, now my vote transfers to Smith.)
After
reallocating the votes, if no person still has a majority, the person with the next
fewest votes shall be eliminated, and those votes reallocated.
If a voters
ballot is exhausted (all candidates chosen by that person have been eliminated),
then that vote shall be transfered to "None of the Above," who shall count for purposes
of total votes cast, but not be eligible to win the election.
A tie in total
votes shall be resolved by counting the number of first-preference votes.. and if
those are also equal, the second preference votes (even if the first preference of
that second preference vote is currently still in the running), and so forth.
The election shall end, and a victor shall be declared, under the following
conditions;
1) One candidate has reached a majority of all ballots cast.
That candidate has been elected.
2) Only two candidates (other than 'None
of the Above') remain. The candidate with the plurality of votes, in this case,
has been elected.
I strongly urge the Board to adopt either these rules, or
a very close analog of them. It is the only way to ensure that the self-nomination
process and balloting won't be a sham, while preserving the concept of having a managable
sized ballot.
Sincerely,
Mike Bourdaa
United States