[NCUC-EC] [NCUC-DISCUSS] NCUC EC Elections - Voting Starts tomorrow 23 Nov 2015

Wed Nov 25 18:32:26 CET 2015

OK, sorry for the confusion. I agree that it probably won’t matter much and I agree that the priority is to get the election underway and completed on schedule. So whatever path gets that done, let’s do.

--MM

From: NCUC-EC [mailto:ncuc-ec-bounces at lists.ncuc.org] On Behalf Of William Drake
Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2015 4:11 AM
To: William Drake <william.drake at uzh.ch>
Cc: Exec. Comm <ncuc-ec at lists.ncuc.org>; NCUC-discuss <ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org>; Tapani Tarvainen <tapani.tarvainen at effi.org>
Subject: Re: [NCUC-EC] [NCUC-DISCUSS] NCUC EC Elections - Voting Starts tomorrow 23 Nov 2015

Good morning

So here’s where it seems we are.

1.  Since at least 2012 (I don’t have saved mail about 2011), prior to my being chair, the ballot sent out in each NCUC election have included text saying we will use the NCSG Charter’s system of vote weighting. I suppose the rationales were that the Charter was written a couple years after the Bylaws (basically by the same people if memory serves) and hence could be viewed as the more current thinking; NCUC is a part of NCSG and should conform with its procedures where possible; the Bylaws have a number of provisions that never seemed to correspond to reality (like membership fees) and others that were rendered inoperable by the formation of NCSG (like having a Policy Committee and electing NCUC Councilors), so people involved in the ‘inner circles’ of constituency tended to say let’s follow the parts that still make sense and revise the Bylaws later (which I could never get help with); and it would be sort of unusual to tell large member organizations that they get 4 votes in the one election but only 2 in the other.  So I suggested ok let’s continue with the practice.

2.  Nobody on or off the EC ever said there was a problem with doing this.  That includes the less than handful of people who are now saying there is a problem with doing this.  And again, I emphasize, this language has been included in the text of every ballot people have used to vote ever since.  It didn’t just pop out of nowhere like magic.  I’m sorry if someone never thought about it before, but it would seem a strange procedure to turn on a dime now and take votes away from certain members because they have.  We shouldn’t bounce back and forth based on a few people complaining no matter how disputatious the dialogue is, that’s not a professional process to follow in a network of 450+ members, many of whom are new and may find it discouraging.  If we were to make a change now, one would think it should at least be based on a vote of the current EC.  But the only EC members to weigh in have been Milton (the nonvoting Treasurer) and I, and we don’t agree.  This doesn’t seem sufficient grounds for a change of course.

3.  There’s no reason to believe that following the Charter system would impact the election outcome in one way rather than another.  On the ballot list Maryam sent me, there are 22 organizations that would have 4 votes rather than 2 under the Charter model.  There’s no way to know whether they will all vote, or if they do how those 44 ‘extra’ votes would be allocated with respect to the 3 of 6 EC slots that are contested.  Same for all the previous years.

4.  Meanwhile we are losing precious days in the election cycle while people argue the point, which could negatively impact turn-out.  We could let things drift for a few more days and see if more people weigh in but I strongly suspect this would not produce a clear consensus in either direction, and inevitably someone could be unhappy with either solution.

We need to get the new EC in place to make appointments for 2016, prepare for the February Noncontracted Parties House meeting, and on and on.  So I would strongly suggest we just proceed on the same basis as previous years and if for next year some people want to change the voting weighting let’s have a thorough discussion of the options rather than a 12th hour debate involving a handful of people.

FWIW with respect to the revision, I sent the Bylaws Team list a set of suggestions in August http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/bylaws/2015-August/000060.html that included addressing different weightings in the two models.  Nobody has responded to this but I would think that is the appropriate setting in which to take up the matter.

Bill

On Nov 24, 2015, at 3:55 PM, William Drake <william.drake at uzh.ch<mailto:william.drake at uzh.ch>> wrote:

Hi

On Nov 24, 2015, at 9:52 AM, Tapani Tarvainen <tapani.tarvainen at effi.org<mailto:tapani.tarvainen at effi.org>> wrote:

Hi Bill,

Without digging into email archives, my recollection is that in 2013 I
first made the voter list using 2-1-1 weights as per our bylaws, but
you decided to use 4-2-1 instead on grounds of consistency with NCSG
and precedent (apparently it had been done that way previously),

Right.  And nobody argued against it then or at any time since when the same thing’s been recurrently stated, which makes this little episode a bit unhelpful.  We should not be inconsistent with the NCSG charter, and one of the tasks for the Bylaws Team in revising will be to make sure we bring our procedures into alignment with it.  Until that is done we try to comform where we can.

So, history and consistency with NCSG favours 4-2-1, bylaws say 2-1-1.

The bylaws also say that

"The Chair shall also: [...] Establish ballots for voting, for review
by the EC"

and

"The Executive Committee shall have the following duties: [...]
Approve all ballots for online elections"

So, over to you and NCUC EC.

Nobody on the EC has opposed the practice previously and I’m not seeing anyone reversing course now.  If no objections are received by tomorrow morning CET I suggest we just get on with it, we’re already losing two days and Glen is waiting to send the ballots.  We will have a shortened election period this time so hopefully everyone will respond promptly when ballots are sent.  Please do check your spam folders to make sure that mail from tally at icann.org<mailto:tally at icann.org> does not get stuck.

Thanks

Bill

*********************************************************
William J. Drake
International Fellow & Lecturer
  Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ
  University of Zurich, Switzerland
Chair, Noncommercial Users Constituency,
  ICANN, www.ncuc.org<http://www.ncuc.org/>
william.drake at uzh.ch<mailto:william.drake at uzh.ch> (direct), wjdrake at gmail.com<mailto:wjdrake at gmail.com> (lists),
  www.williamdrake.org<http://www.williamdrake.org/>
Internet Governance: The NETmundial Roadmap http://goo.gl/sRR01q
*********************************************************

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*********************************************************
William J. Drake
International Fellow & Lecturer
  Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ
  University of Zurich, Switzerland
Chair, Noncommercial Users Constituency,
  ICANN, www.ncuc.org<http://www.ncuc.org>
william.drake at uzh.ch<mailto:william.drake at uzh.ch> (direct), wjdrake at gmail.com<mailto:wjdrake at gmail.com> (lists),
  www.williamdrake.org<http://www.williamdrake.org>
Internet Governance: The NETmundial Roadmap http://goo.gl/sRR01q
*********************************************************

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