RE: [gnso-osc] GCOT Transmittal to OSC: Voting Abstentions

["Metalitz, Steven" <met@xxxxxxx>]

I would like the archive to reflect that these twenty pages of documents
were distributed less than 18 hours prior to the scheduled start time of
our meeting, although nearly all of them are dated last Monday or
earlier.  
 
Steve Metalitz

________________________________

From: owner-gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Ken Bour
Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 2:09 PM
To: gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gnso-osc] GCOT Transmittal to OSC: Voting Abstentions



OSC Members:

 

Forwarding this email to the OSC per Chuck's request...  

 

Ken Bour

=======

 

OSC Members:    

 

I have a series of work products from the GCOT ready your review.  To
this e-mail, I have attached three documents:

 

1)      An Executive Summary intended to provide the OSC with the GCOT's
thought processes and rationale in designing the attached abstention
provisions that we are recommending be included in the GNSO Operating
Procedures as a replacement for Section 4-Voting.  

2)      Section 4 Voting of the Council Rules of Procedure.  We are
asking for the OSC to review and recommend Section 4.5-Abstentions to
the Council for its review and consideration as part the Nairobi
meeting.  The entire Section 4 is included for two purposes:  (a) so
that Section 4.5 can be read in context; and (b) to reflect a few
changes in 4.2-4.3 that were required to maintain consistency
(redlined).   Since Cairo, the Work Team, along with ICANN Staff
support, has invested considerable time and effort in understanding the
abstention issues involved from a Councilor perspective, an
SG/Constituency perspective including differences in Charters, as well
as seeking Staff General Counsel advice based upon the history of this
topic over the years to finally land at the language we have per the
attached.  While we realize it unlikely that the abstention language can
be brought to an actual vote of the Council as part of Nairobi, we have
taken the liberty of providing to the OSC a draft motion contained below
for OSC consideration:

 

SAMPLE COUNCIL RESOLUTION:

 

WHEREAS the GNSO Council Operations Work Team (GCOT) has developed a set
of abstention provisions that it recommends be incorporated into the
GNSO Operations Procedures as Sub-Section 4.5 (part of 4.0-Voting); and

WHEREAS the GCOT has also identified other voting procedures within
Section 4.0 that it recommends be amended to be consistent with its
proposed abstentions provisions; and 

WHEREAS the Operations Steering Committee (OSC) has reviewed all of
these revisions and recommends them for adoption by the GNSO Council. 

RESOLVED, that the GNSO Council accepts Version ___ (TBD) of the GNSO
Operating Procedures, including the recommended revisions to Section 4
and its new Sub-Section 4.5. 

RESOLVED FURTHER, that the GNSO Council directs Staff to post this
document for twenty-one (21) days in the ICANN Public Comment Forum and
reserves the right to modify these procedures upon conclusion of that
public comment period.

 

3)      Analysis of 2009 Abstention Voting.  This exercise was for the
purpose of interpreting how the Section 4.5-Abstentions language would
have affected actual Councilor abstention votes if it had been in place
at the time.  While admittedly some interpretation by the Work Team, we
think this was a useful analysis that we want to share with the OSC as
part of its review of the Section 4.5 language.  I should mention that
Work Team members debated whether to redact individual names from this
analysis for the reason of potentially being a distraction to the real
purpose of the analysis (which was to evaluate the recorded reason for
the abstention against the Section 4.5 language).  We decided not to
redact names for the reason that the voting information is public
information anyway.  I am mentioning this for two reasons: (a) a heads
up for OSC members to focus upon the intention of the analysis vs. "who"
performed the abstention and (b) for OSC members to consider, also,
whether or not to redact names if it is decided to share the analysis
more broadly, such as with GNSO Council members or other such public
disclosure.

 

Also, we are seeking OSC advice with regards to Section 4.4-Absentee
Voting (see embedded comment attached).  The Work Team is strongly
considering taking a close look at this language that may lead to a
recommendation.  One of our questions was:  What do members of the OSC
think?  Is the current language for Absentee voting acceptable?  For
example, the recent sort of emergency Board Seat 13 vote was excluded
from the ability for absentee voting.  Is this appropriate?  We are
questioning it and as part of this effort and seeking OSC member advice
with regards to the language as currently written. 

 

Lastly, we have made quite a bit of progress on the Statement of
Interest document which we intend to incorporate into the Rules of
Procedure.  We feel this is ready for OSC review, including having
received ICANN staff legal counsel input.  I will be sending this to you
in the near future under separate cover.  The Work Team respectfully
requests prompt attention from the OSC to the Abstention Language as
contained in Section 4.5 of the attached document, including if possible
getting this language in front of GNSO Council members as part of their
agenda for discussion in Nairobi.  Upon review, OSC members will see the
approach we took with regards to Abstentions primarily on two fronts:
1) How can the reason for Council member abstention be remedied at the
SG/Constituency level; and 2) how can the outcome of reducing the
denominator at the time of Council vote due to an abstention be the rare
exception.  While our Work Team does not necessarily conduct its
business by way of formal voting measures, I believe it is appropriate
for me to communicate as the Chair that we had what I considered as
supermajority consensus to these 2 points which was the basis of our
work the leading to the final product as now being recommended to the
OSC.

 

Please let me know if any questions.

 

Ray Fassett

Chair

GCOT