[ncdnhc-discuss] ISOC to bid on .org

[Kent Crispin]

On Sun, Jun 09, 2002 at 11:10:05AM -0400, James Love wrote:
[...]
> : Using your example, it would take no more than $60000 dollars to buy
> : enough domain names to seat your entire list of candidates.
>    $60k would buy 10,000 domain name registrations, if the registrar fee was
> zero, which it is not.

Close enough for government work, as they say.  Godaddy charges $8.95,
retail, for individuals.  As a general rule bulk registrations are
cheaper.  Or become your own registrar. 

>   Next, you would would have to create 10,000 phony
> voters, with 10,000 phone names, email addresses, and postal addresses.

Nope.  Perfectly legal voters.  A large organization or corporation
or government could come up with 10000 perfectly legal voters at the
drop of a hat, if they paid for them.  Note that this would not be 
fraud -- it would be perfectly legal.

> And at 1 percent global turnout, how many persons would vote?  How many
> millions of gTLD domain holders are there?

In fact, the ALSC report estimates .01% of eligible voters participated
in the ICANN election. 

>     Finally, if you committed a massive fraud like this, you would have to
> hope that no one found out.  How likely is all this?

It's not fraud, it's just creativity.  It's very much harder to claim
fraud across multiple jurisdictions and cultural expectations...  And
it's pretty likely:  By some interpretations it already happened on a
large scale in the ICANN elections, as was documented in the ALSC
report. 

>   And with staggered
> elections, what does all of this fraud get you?

A presence on the board.  That's what your goal is, isn't it?

> : Moreover, very low turnouts are symptomatic of an important lower level
> : issue: an uninformed/uninterested electorate.  Another maxim from civics
> : 001 is that an uninformed electorate is a wonderful playground for
> : demagogues and would-be demagogues.
> :
> 
>     What evidence is there from the CIRA or ICANN elections that this was
> the case?

No comment. :-)  

You have several times made the point that since the CIRA/ICANN
elections produced qualified directors (even though perhaps unpopular in
some circles), those procedures must be OK for selecting board members. 
By that criteria, however, the original selection of ICANN board members
is an acceptable procedure.  Also, by that criteria a nomcom would
also be an acceptable procedure.

> : On the contrary, I do look at such things -- staggered elections do
> : indeed require more patience on the part of the capturers.  However,
> : once they are in, staggered terms also mean that it takes longer to get
> : rid of them.  There were examples of this in the case of some California
> : school board elections, where the religious right ran "stealth"
> : candidates to pack school boards.
> 
>      And how did this play out in the end?   If like my community, things
> turned out ok.

They turned out OK -- after a lot of money and energy was spent.

Also, they turned out OK because a school board is very different than
ICANN.  A school board exists in a gigantic political context, with
pre-existing organizations that can mobilize to deal with issues, in a 
single legal jurisdiction, etc etc.

> : However, while it is a serious concern, the issue of capture is actually
> : only a supporting argument in the context of ICANN.  The real issue is
> : one you also fail to address, the issue of whether ICANN is a governance
> : body or a coordination body.  If you believe that ICANN's role should be
> : limited, as I do, then global direct elections are vastly more than the
> : organization can afford, and, even worse, if you do have global direct
> : elections, it will inevitably force ICANN into a governance role, at
> : which it is ultimately doomed to fail.  Just my opinion, of course....
> 
> Global elections based upon domain name registrations would not be that
> expensive..

Easy for you to say.  In the ALSC model what happens is that the expense
of running the election spreads out, to the registrars, registries, to
the ALSO...  one way or another it is an indirect tax on domain name
holders.  As I understand it, the registrars originally thought it would
be easy, but later backpedaled when they started dealing with the details.

>  But if not a popular election, what?   Kent the real issue
> that you fail to address is your alternative.  OK, you want an elitist
> system.  I can live with an elistist system too, depending upon the details.
> You know that I even presented one.    What is your model?  It's easy to
> knock democractic systems.  They have flaws.  But so too have alternatives.
> What is yours?

I think that there are lots of cost-effective ways to get qualified
directors.  I'm happy with a nomcom, and if not that, then an indirect
election as I described in my paper...I guess you never bothered to read
all the way through it. 

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
kent at songbird.com                          lonesome."  -- Mark Twain