Re: [ga] vote appeal

["Roberto Gaetano" <ga_chair@hotmail.com>]

Joanna,

>
>Hello Leah,
>I agree with you and just want to make absolutely clear that I seek only to
>improve DNSO operations and correct operational flaws in the Election
>process that have presented themselves recently.


Thanks for your positive approach.
While waiting for the comments from the new Chair, I have some specific 
comments, see below.


>
>I call upon our new Chair to add "Clarification/ Revision of Voting Rules"
>to the GA's agenda for the coming year, for the purposes of agreeing
>additional procedures by consensus, with particular reference to:-
>
>1) Change in the Bylaws to enable the GA to elect it's own Chair and
>Alternate Chair.

Agree.
The reason why it has not been done so far is that I contacted some Board 
members and some NC members, and I had the impression that, while there 
would have been serious doubts that the Board would have changed the bylaws 
without a request by NC, the NC was willing to ratify the elected 
Chairpersons (but not ready yet to propose a change in the bylaws).
My course of action, of which I take full responsibility, was *not* to force 
a vote by the ICANN Board at this point in time, nor a vote by NC, on the 
matter of principle, but to go with the "ratification of the most voted" 
approach, which was, still in my own opinion, a step forward that will allow 
us in the future to try the next step with more possibilities of success.

>
>2) Number of endorsements required for a nominee to become a candidate.

This should be deleted altogether.
The reason why this was in place, as I believe I did already explain - but 
repetita juvant, is not to burden an NC vote with an excessive number of 
candidates.
As now the vote is carried on by the GA, and as the number of nominees is 
never large :<(, there is no reason for having a limit.
I would still have an endorsement phase, separate from vote, because this 
may give an indication to the voters about the support (and the reasons 
thereof, as it is possible to add comments to the endorsements).

>
>3) Procedure for appointing Watchdog committee and membership criteria.

Good.
This is a larger problem, that involves the case of List Monitors, and the 
proposed ombudsman.
It will be good to have a team, elected by the GA, who performs these tasks.
I would suggest elections right away for list monitors, and discussion about 
ombudsman, and these people will be by default the watchdogs for the next 
elections.

>
>4) Procedure in the event of withrawal of a candidate in the middle of the
>election.

How about: nothing?
As is now seems fine.

>
>5) Number of Ballots that may be issued by DNSO Secretariat and
>circumstances in which they may be re-issued.

Let me explain this.
I saw your other posts about unicity of the ballot: this is not the 
question.
The problem is not the sending of the ballot by the Secretariat, but the 
sending of the answer by the elector. Even with one single ballot sent, 
there's the possibility of the voter mailing his ballot more than once. At 
this point, you *have* multiple ballots, and no way to tell which is the 
good one. Either you take the first, and discard the following ones, or you 
take the last, and discard the previous ones.
This is different from the case you mentioned about UK, where you have a 
*physical* ballot, which is unique. Incidentally, in Italy if you make a 
mistake in voting you can ask for a second ballot. The first one is 
discarded (=>kept in a separate place for auditing), and the second one is 
the good one.
Also, you said you never participated in an election where you could vote 
multiple times, and the last vote counted. Well, in this case you must not 
have participated to ICANN's AtLarge election, because that was exactly the 
same case.

>
>6) Appeals procedure

The current level of appeals is:
- watchdog
- NC
- ICANN BoD
The first one by internal GA rules;
the second one by ICANN Bylaws (NC is responsible);
the third one by obvious consideration that ICANN BoD is the supreme 
authority.
Maybe needs formalization? But probably does not need changes.

Regards
Roberto

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