Re: [ga] vote appeal

[Joanna Lane <jo-uk@rcn.com>]

Hello Jonathan,

This is the first election I have participated in where I was allowed to
change my mind and vote again having already cast my vote. Not only that,
there was no limit to the number of ballots I could send, for only the LAST
one counted. Please point me to the relevant section in the rules agreed by
a vote of the GA that confirms the procedure that took place.

Clearly, the watchdog committe made it up as they went along. That may have
been the best possible solution in the circumstances, and if anything, Eric
would have gained more votes from the second ballot cast after one candidate
dropped out.  Nevertheless, the second ballot was an invention of the
Watchdog committee, which was not elected by the GA, but was a group of
people selected behind closed doors.

The rules clearly say *one* ballot. One cannot fault the DNSO Secretariat,
nobody claimed they had not received a ballot, or denied an opportunity to
vote. Nevertheless, new ballots were sent simply because some members had
decided to throw away three of the four votes allowed in the first round. If
those who voted only for you in the first round, had instead, identified
their order of preference for all 4 candidates, as would have been sensible,
then there would have been no reason to send a second ballot.

Even if you had not withdrawn, any one of the candidates could have been hit
by a bus and members who had failed to consider that possibility when
casting their first vote had only themselves to blame. This second ballot
was an "oops ballot".

If the candidate that lost is now crying foul, it is hardly suprising. I'm
not meaning to say that Eric is acting wisely in what he is doing, but I am
meaning to say that rules should now be revisited and redrafted to reflect
agreement by the GA as a whole - to incorporate whatever procedures may be
neccessary, to avoid a repeat of the situation where a self-appointed group
of watchdogs creatively interpret existing rules to fit unforeseen
circumstances.

This should not be too difficult. Election rules are hardly new territory.
Every democracy in the world has them.

Joanna  

on 4/11/01 9:27 PM, Jonathan Weinberg at weinberg@mail.msen.com wrote:

> Eric --
> 
> You clearly feel wronged by the process here, but I'm honestly a
> little unsure why.  As far as the "ten endorsements" issue is concerned,
> the fact is that you *were* included on the ballot, so even if bad
> decisions were made, they didn't end up harming you. And the fact is that
> the rules *weren't* changed after I decided to drop out -- the watchdog
> committee decided to continue the election under the old rules.  The only
> new thing that happened was that voters were sent duplicate copies of
> their ballots in case they wanted to change their votes; the ability to
> make a change was a right voters already had under the old rules.
> 
> You made a good showing, but not enough people voted for you, and
> there was no set of rules under which you could have been deemed to have
> won -- Danny and Patrick each had more first-place votes than you, more
> second-place votes, and more third-place votes.  There's no shame in
> fighting the good fight but not getting enough votes to win.
> 
> Jon
> 
> 
> On Wed, 11 Apr 2001, Eric Dierker wrote:
> 
>> Yesterday I posted the following to this list and to Mr.Gaetano,
>> 
>> http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga-full/Arc07/msg00580.html
>> I have received no response.
>> Today I sent a private email requesting some type of response I got
>> none.
>> 
>> I looked to see if there was an objection or appeal process, there is
>> not one. There is absolutely no reference to 10 nominations being needed
>> to run for chair. And I think Mr. Corliss had all 10 of his lined up
>> when that was announced. hmm.
>> 
>> I then looked at the rules and found this:
>> http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/2001.GA-chair-election-rules-v0.2.html
>> SELECTION OF THE ALTERNATE CHAIR
>> 
>> The same process as for chair is used, but the candidate selected for
>> chair is eliminated before the counting starts.
>> 
>> (NOTE: This is likely to be a different candidate than the runner-up in
>> the selection procedure for chair, for instance when 90% of the
>> electorate
>> rank one person first and another second, while the remaining 10% vote
>> for a third. Re-running the process is considered more likely to select
>> a
>> team that can work well together.)
>> 
>> This shows that there was no need to change any rules, the process
>> itself would handle JW's withdrawal. And that we are supposed to have a
>> whole other subsequent election for Alternate Chair
>> 
>> Then I looked at the watchdog list and found this;
>> http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga-watchdog/Arc00/
>> 
>> Which shows the committe knew that they would change the outcome of the
>> election if they changed the rules, allowing for revoting.
>> 
>> This is disgusting.  I can understand why these people do not want me as
>> alternate, but why did they do so much to get Mr. Corliss?  Could it be
>> his association with a competitor to ICANN.
>> 
>> The clock is ticking I cannot ignore this!
>> 
>> Sincerely,
>> 
>> --
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> 
> 
> Jonathan Weinberg
> weinberg@msen.com
> 
> 
> --
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