I hate to be so USA-centric, but I can't help but notice that some of the comments
made about representation in the at-large self-nomination and vote remind me of some
of the political problems faced by the US federal government in it's early years.Early
in the history of the US Federal Government, there was an argument between the geographicaly
small, densly populated northern states and the larger, less populated southern states.
An argument erupted concerning political representation of the US States in the federal
government. Some states favored a population based representational scheme (1 representative
per x people,) while others favored a state-based scheme (x representatives per state.)
In population based scheme, the more populous northern states would clearly have
greater representation than the less populous southern states. In the other scheme,
the more populous northern states felt thier populations were being underrepresented.
Students of american political history know that the result was a bicameral legislature:
the house whose membership is based on population and the senate whose membership
is two senators per state. (Again, let me apologise for being so US-Centric here,
but I promise I'll get to the point soon.)
While the solution to old US federal
legislative representational systems may seem to have nothing to do with representational
deficiencies in the current ICANN @Large director (executive) election, there are
some similarities. To date it seems that the most contentious self-nomination rules
seem to be the 2 country rule, the 10% rule and the geographical distribution of
directors. (i.e. - the fact that we're electing one director from 5 different regions
rather than electing 5 directors from the entire international membership.)
With
respect to the 2 country rule and geographic distribution of director's constituncies,
I believe that the intent is to protect the interests of the minority. I think it's
easy to imagine a situation where technologicly emerging nations (some in asia, some
in africa) may support a particular policy while nations in the established regions
may support exactly the opposite policy. If it were the case that we had a strictly
popular election criteria, there would be no motivation for the at large directors
to support any policy that was not held by the majority, even if it were to the extreme
detriment of the non-populous regions/nations. In other words, it seems that the
intent is to protect the minority from a "dictatorship of the majority."
One of
the interesting facts about US federal executive elections is that they are not direct
popular elections. Instead, candidates vie for state electors (members of the so-called
electorial college) in a winner take-all contest. For example, assume California
has 52 electors, if 38% of California voters vote for candidate A, %37 for candidate
B, and 35% for candidate C, all 52 California electors would cast thier vote in the
electorial college for candidate A. These 52 votes would then be tallied with the
votes from the other state's electors to determine who has the most votes in the
electorial college. The person with the most electors wins the election. This is
how Ronald Reagan "took every state but Minnesoda" in the 1984 election winning what
was considered a landslide victory with only 45% of the popular vote. (Someone should
double-check my numbers on this one, I'm sure they're correct within one order of
magnitude.)
Why is this important? It is important because the number of electors
from each state is the same as the number of that state's representatives in the
federal legislature. In theory, the fact that there are both population based and
state based federal representatives protects the less populous states from tyrrany
from California, New York, and Texas while the population of these states have influance
approximately proportional to thier population. While there are many who believe
this system to be fundamentally flawed, it is interesting to note that it is the
result of compromise between the populists and anti-federalists; a situation that
I believe is occuring in the ICANN @Large electorate.
It is also important to mention
why it is that each individual nation (or in the US example, state) should have at
least some theoretical representation in the board election, and it should not be
a completely popular election. It is characteristic of nation states that they pass
laws and maintain commercial traditions that are frequently completely at odds with
other nation states. Witness the traditions of censorship in China and the United
States. If we are to believe the reports, it is impossible to access dissident political
opinion on the net in China, while in the US it is virtually impossible to block
pornagraphic web sites in public schools. When managing a transnational resource
like domain names or IP addresses, it is important for each nation’s traditions be
accommodated and the policy of the international management authority respect each
nations laws. Failure to do so will doom the international management of the transnational
resource.
With respect to the 10% rule, I do not see how it is possible for ICANN
staff to maintain support for this rule. Bret Faucett has pointed out that this is
in violation of their California state charter, and to continue to support this rule
may at best cause the nomination and election of at large directors to be politically
suspect, and at worst to open the ICANN board and officers to legal liability. If
we look at the number of signatures required to place a candidate on the ballot for
a presidential election, I believe the numbers vary from state to state, and ballot
access measures in the US have become increasingly severe, but it’s certainly less
than the 10% rule. I would be interested to hear of similar requirements in other
countries (again, sorry for being so US centric, we really didn’t learn that much
about other country’s political processes in school...)
Another important item
to note is that in the US, even if a candidate is not on the ballot, voters can still
‘Write In’ the name of a candidate should they not wish to vote for any of those
on the ballot. Indeed, every election year we hear stories of ‘None of the Above’,
‘Nobody’, and ‘Mickey Mouse’ receiving quite a few votes. I would be less concerned
with the 10% rule if there was some form of write-in capability.
Since the rules
as stated seem to require a self nominated candidate to pre-campaign, I would like
to pre-announce my pre-candidacy for the North America @Large director office. In
the near future I will publish something about my technical and political background
as well as a definitive platform.
If elected, the first item on my agenda will
be to attempt to modify the ICANN bylaws to provide a more open self-nominating procedure.
I will also investigate the use of STV (Single Transferrable Vote) and IRV (Instant
Runoff Vote) for election of at large directors.