RE: [registrars] GNSO vote

["Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@melbourneit.com.au>]

Hello Ross,

You have raised a good question.

I will try to get an answer for this from the ICANN General Counsel.  It
is not for me to give a personal answer.  It think it is important to
answer as we redraft the by-laws.  It will help the council
representatives to get the answer too.

I am not a lawyer as you know, and my comment was based on previous
advice on this point.

I am not sure if there is a legal by-law basis or whether it is just an
"intent" of the ICANN structure.

In the absence of specific wording in either ICANN by-laws or registrars
constituency by-laws, I err on the side of the collective good rather
than personal or company gain or registrar gain.  Luckily in most
instances the collective good in my view has coincided with the
registrar constituency majority view (but not often unanimous view).

Incidently I think the registrar representatives do reflect the "wishes
and interests" of the constituency that voted for them.  We certainly
put those views to the council as input in any decision making process.
If I provided a personal or company view on the council I would
explicity identify such instances (and wouldn't do so if there was a
constituency position on a topic).  We also need to attempt to achieve
consensus and listen to the input from the other constituencies.

Likewise I would hope that the candidates elected by the GNSO council to
the ICANN Board are also capable of explaining resolutions etc from the
GNSO Council to the rest of the ICANN Board.  Again these resolutions
may not be unanimous at the GNSO Council level.  I would certainly
expect the candidates to keep in close communication with the GNSO.

It may be that we are debating ethical versus legal issues.  Sometimes
good ethicsw are included explicity in the legal by-laws, and sometimes
we assume that persons holding offical positions will act ethically and
we choose them accordingly.  Maybe I am also just naive :-)!



Regards,
Bruce


-----Original Message-----
From: Ross Wm. Rader [mailto:ross@tucows.com] 
Sent: Monday, 17 March 2003 10:59 AM
To: Bruce Tonkin; registrars@dnso.org

> whole.   Under the ICANN structure, the registrars constituency cannot
> "direct" council members on how to vote, just as the GNSO Council 
> cannot direct its nominees (seats 13 and 14) to the ICANN Board on how
to vote.

Can you be more explicit about this Bruce? Board members have a legal
accountability to ICANN the corporation whereas Council representatives
do not. In fact, Council reps are directly elected by each constituency
to represent the wishes and interests of the constituency that elected
them - your statement seems inconsistent with this. Are there specific
rules or procedures that allow Council reps to vote their as they see
fit instead of voting according to the instructions of the constituency?

Please note that I am not questioning your decision or those of the
other Council reps. I have no reason to believe that our representatives
did not represent the wishes of our constituency or in any way acted
inappropriately, I simply want to understand this specific point in more
detail.

Regards,


                      -rwr


"There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like
an idiot."
                - Steven Wright

Got Blog? http://www.byte.org

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@melbourneit.com.au>
To: <registrars@dnso.org>
Sent: Monday, March 17, 2003 1:33 PM
Subject: RE: [registrars] GNSO vote


> Hello All,
>
> With regard to the GNSO election:
>
> There has been only one round of email voting.
> See
> http://www.dnso.org/elections/2003.GNSO-ICANN-seat14-voting-proc.html
> for voting procedures.
>
> The registrars reps voted in that round after the email vote amongst 
> registrars.  This occurred on 12/13 March 2003 (depending on which 
> timezone you were in).
>
> I expect the interim results of the first round to be published soon.
>
> The results are not finalised until the GNSO Council has ratified the 
> vote during a physical meeting or teleconference.
>
> It is a bit difficult to comment on who I voted for at this stage, as 
> we are really in the midst of the election, and results have not yet 
> been made public.  Given the recent discussion about registrar voting 
> processes, note the the GNSO council does not display the voting 
> preferences of members of the council until the vote is ratified.  
> Each council member is allocated a code, and each member of council 
> can check that their vote has been correcly recorded.
>
> All I will say at this stage, is that I voted as a member of council, 
> representing the registrars constituency.  As a council member I was 
> involved in accessing each candidate and interviewing each candidate.
> As a council member I must act in the best interests of ICANN as a
> whole.   Under the ICANN structure, the registrars constituency cannot
> "direct" council members on how to vote, just as the GNSO Council 
> cannot direct its nominees (seats 13 and 14) to the ICANN Board on how
to vote.
>
> As a representative of the registrars constituency, I also consulted 
> with members of the registrars constituency and paid close attention 
> to the registrar vote.  This is in accordance with the registrar 
> constituency by-laws:
> http://www.icann-registrars.org/pdfs/bylaws1.pdf
> That state:
> "As far as is practical, Council representatives shall consult all 
> relevant matters and decisions with the registrars constituency"
>
> Note also that there are two seats to fill (seat 13 and seat 14).  We 
> are currently in the midst of an election for seat 14.
>
> Once the election results are final, I will be happy to inform the 
> registrars constituency of how I voted, and the reason for my
decision.
>
> Regards,
> Bruce Tonkin
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nikolaj Nyholm [mailto:nikolajn@ascio.com]
> Sent: Monday, 17 March 2003 12:57 AM
> To: 'Ross Wm. Rader'; 'Ken Stubbs'
> Cc: 'Registrar Constituency'
>
> > Also Ken, we haven't heard back from the Names Council reps per our 
> > request earlier this week to split the vote 2/3 in favor of Palage
> > 1/3 in favor of
> > Pisanty. I had figured that perhaps our reps were just busy and not 
> > able to acknowledge, but now I see that you are indeed here (or are 
> > here now). :-)
> >
> > Can you shed some light on the status of this request for the 
> > benefit of the membership?
>
>
> As Ross and others, I would also like to enquire into the voting 
> practices of our reps. Kindly advise.
>
> /n
>
>
>