Having just today May
31 received my ICANN at large membership PIN, airmailed May 26th from Los Angeles,
the effective timetable for considering the proposals (posted May 19, deadline for
comments June 5th) and commenting has been considerably curtailed, as I will be engaged
on other matters for the next few days and won't have time to get back to this 'til
the middle of next week.So some brief and maybe unstructured comments follow (apologies
for this and length), and apologies if I have misunderstood anything:
Any nominations
should have member support, and the qualifying thresholds should be common whether
member-nominated or committee nominated. We may expect participation rates to be
higher than other voluntary organisations (5% to 10% is considered a pretty good
active participation rate) - because of the nature of our community. Is 35% - 50%
too high a rate to expect? We should not a) deter members from seeking nomination
nor b) through complexity deter members from exercising their vote.
It does seem
unnecessarily complex to have stages of 1 nomination 2 members show support
(but limited to only one candidate) 3 final ballot to exclude nominations not meeting
what seem to be unrealistically high thresholds of support.
All candidates for
election should be required to meet the same criteria, and overcome the same hurdles.
As
at May 22nd at large membership by region was I understand as follows:
357
Africa
1832 Asia and Pacific
6775 Europe
325 Latin America and the Caribbean
7630
North America
With 2 out of the top 12 countries dominating, viz.,
6,915
40.9% United States
4,107 24.3% Germany
715
4.2% Canada
669 4.0% United Kingdom
338 2.0% Japan
331 2.0% Korea,
Republic of
323 1.9% France
310
1.8% Australia
232 1.4% Switzerland
220 1.3% Austria
200 1.2% India
179 1.1% Netherlands
The 10% regional support requirement will
clearly vary substantially in terms of numbers. I think it more sane and sensible
to require a minimum number of supporters (proposer plus seconders) from the region
- and drawn from at least 2 countries - and the minimum being set at say 50 or 100.
There may be an argument (it's certainly advanced in political elections in the UK)
that 'frivolous' candidates should be deterred by having a high financial threshold
and requiring a minimium number of proposers/seconders. We - and other volunteer
organisations - are different, and should be seeking to encourage a wide range of
candidates from our number - even those who may not appear to have much experience/expertise.
Our representative bodies should be just that. It seems to me unlikely that an informed
membership, even if we reach the dizzy heights of 50%+ voting, will do other than
support the 'best' qualified. A financial qualification (say a deposit, which is
returned should a minimum % of the votes cast be received) isn't appropriate.
Candidates
should be proposed, whether by themselves, the committee, or others (with the candidates
consent), and members should be free to add their support as seconders to the candidatures.
Any candidate not meeting the minimum threshold for nomination should not go on the
ballot.
And whilst we should require that primary proposers (and maybe seconders)
should be from within the same region as the nominee, seconders from the larger membership
should also be able to validly support the candidature. That seems to me to support
both the principles of reflecting the region and the trans-national nature and outlook
required of the prospective directors.
Should there be any