> >3. THE NOMINATIONS COMMITTEE SHOULD BE REQUIRED
> >TO SELECT SEVERAL
CANDIDATES FOR EACH BOARD SEAT. > I agree with this. You might want to send
a note specifically
> to the NomCom (nominations@icann.org).
Good. Elsewhere,
I recommended some hard minimums and maximums as a recommendation.. there is wiggle
room in the exact numbers I used, they're purely arbitrary.
> >4. SELF-NOMINATION
SHOULD BE MADE EASIER AND
> >REQUIRE A LOWER THRESHOLD OF SUPPORT.
>
In general, I'm persuaded that a lower threshold is a good idea.
> I think
the point about August being a big vacation month is a
> good one too, though
I don't think much can be done about it.
> The regions are of *very* different
sizes (members-wise), so I
> favor the use of a fixed percentage, rather than
absolute numbers.
> I think 1-2% is too low.
Rather than a fixed percentage
for minimum qualification, what would you think about instead a minimum number of
ballot spots? I think the biggest concern about the 10% number is that no person
will be able to get 10% of the entire membership.
On the other hand, the argument
against 1-2% is rather easy.. if you have an enormous ballot, you depress turnout
and the winning candidate may have only a very small number of votes.
The best
solution, IMHO, is a fixed ballot size, combined with an instant runoff voting solution
of some sort, to ensure the ultimate victor in each region is, at minimum, someone
whom the majority can tolerate.
My nightmare scenarios are two-fold.
1)
Only NOMCOM candidates get on.. they nominate, say, three candidates.. all of whom
have virtually identical records, positions, and ideas. If you're voting for
John Doe, or John Doe's clone, you get the same result, and the election is meaningless,
we may as well just flip a coin.
2) The opposite worry, if the ballot is
too large, and no sort of runoff is done at all.. the ultimate winner could be someone
who has a very small core of supporters who do not reflect the @large community..
perhaps the members of some small faction. The remaining candidates split the
"coin-flipping" vote, and perhaps 3/4 of the membership would vote for _anyone else_,
rather than the person who ultimately wins.
When I say a fixed number, I
am refering to ballot places.. a statement such as "There will be between six and
ten self-nominated candidates" (or similar idea lines with different numbers) --
That seems to be something that works for both the largest and smallest regions.
I agree that a statement like "20 nominations gets you on" would lead to an unmanagably
large ballot in the US, and at the same time result in an even higher than 10% threshhold
in more sparcely-represented regions, and that's definately something to be avoided.
Mike
Bourdaa