[council] motion to waive rules

["DNSO Secretariat" <DNSO.secretariat@dnso.org>]

Dear Council Members,

The request for nominations for the Names Council Chair is withdrawn.

May I draw your attention to the correspondence below with Louis Touton.

Glen
DNSO Secretariat


Dear Glen,

Thank you for your inquiry.

Under the ICANN bylaws (Art. VI-B, Section 2), the Names Council takes
formal action by voting at meetings.  Section 2(h) describes the
requirements for meetings; these require either an in-person meeting, a
telephonic meeting, or other electronic means where "all members of the
NC participating in such a meeting can speak to and hear one another".

This means that the Names Council may not formally act through a vote
conducted by e-mail alone.  E-mail votes are often helpful to the Names
Council's decisionmaking process, but must be viewed as informal
indications of sentiment.  In other contexts (such as the Names
Council's selection of ICANN Board members), the Names Council has in
the past conducted a series of e-mail votes and then formally ratified
the result at a telephone meeting.

In view of the informal status of e-mail votes, the situation you
present with the 10-9-1 vote count is not directly relevant to the
effect of the vote.  In all events, any vote would have to be repeated
at a Names Council meeting to be formally effective on the question of
whether Section 1.1 of the rules should be waived.

If a formal vote is taken at a Names Council meeting, and the result is
again 10-9-1, then the measure (i.e. the temporary waiver) will not have
been adopted.  There is, of course, the possibility that the vote at the
meeting may differ from the e-mail vote count.

I hope this guidance is helpful to you and the Names Council in deciding
how to proceed.

Best regards,

Louis Touton

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: NC vote to waive procedure rules
Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 18:55:50 +0100
From: "DNSO Secretariat" <DNSO.secretariat@dnso.org>
To: <touton@icann.org>


Dear Louis,

I would be most grateful if you could please give me your opinion on
this
matter.

The Names Council has just finished a vote:

    to waive the current NC Rules of Procedure,
    as published in:
      http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20010220.NCprocedures-v4.0.html

      Solely for the purposes of the Names Council Chair election
      taking place on February 14, 2002, the Names Council moves
      to waive the provision of Section 1.1 of the Rules of Procedure
      for the DNSO which prohibits a retiring Names Council Chair
      from running for re-election for a period of one year.

    The result have been published as follows:

      The motion is adopted by 10 in favour, 9 against, 1 abstain.

      One (1) person did not cast a vote.


The NC Rules of Procedure state:

"2.2 Voting. In compliance with by-law VI-B 2(h), voting will be
simple majority vote. To pass a motion must attain a majority of the
votes cast. Abstentions count as votes cast. This has the effect of
making an abstention count the same as a vote against."

If the vote is evenly split, a majority does not exist.

I would very much appreciate your legal opinion on this. 

Thank you very much,

Glen
DNSO Secretariat