[ncdnhc-discuss] ICANN committee recommends voting restrictions,fewer At-Large di rectors

[Jonathan Weinberg]

At 01:00 AM 8/31/2001 -0700, Dave Crocker wrote:
>At 11:54 PM 8/30/2001, Adam Peake wrote:
>[snip]
>>Why do you believe the At Large is a single constituency and is open to 
>>capture?
>I'm just trying to apply the same logic that is used about other 
>constituencies.  Common selection mechanism and common labeling suggests 
>an important degree of coherence.
>>Who would capture?
>what do you not understand about the board having 50% of its members 
>selected in a homogenous manner, all with the same label of "at large"?
>>How would they capture?
>By existing.  A 50% voting block inherently has captured the decision process.
>>and then how would the control the board?
>by voting.


         In fact, we can safely assume that a set of at-large directors 
elected by Internet users would *not* be homogenous.  Look at the current 
set of elected directors: Karl and Andy by no means hold the same views as 
Ivan, whose views are different from Nii's, whose views in turn are quite 
different from Katoh-san's (who, after all, is a former Names Council 
member from the Business constituency).  So for good or for ill, even if we 
have nine elected at-large directors, they will not "control" the Board in 
a voting-bloc sense, because they are highly unlikely to vote as a bloc.  I 
happen to think that having nine elected at-large directors would provide 
desirable balance on the Board, but it's not because I think that either SO 
or at-large directors are likely to vote homogenously.

Jon