On our last ALAC call, Olivier brought up the subject of whether ALS certification and decertification votes should use secret ballots (such as we used for personnel votes) or not, and it was decided to discuss the issue on the mailing list. The history is that most ALAC votes are open and it is disclosed who voted which way, with the exception of personnel votes and others that the ALAC explicitly decides should be secret. We have made such a decision of rare occasions. The only example I can recall is when we voted on whether to file objections to the .health new TLDs and we did so to avoid any harassment of ALAC members who voted for such objections. A couple of years ago, a change was made to certification and decertification votes to change them from open to closed because of one or more objections filed by applicants. There is also a concern that a rejected application could lead to harassment of those who rejected it, and a concern that people might not vote honestly if the result was public (similar to the reason for secret ballots on personnel votes). I think that this concern should be considered. However, under our rules and the ICANN Bylaws, ALS certification and decertification decisions may be appealed to the Board. As such, we should be in a position to explain why a decision was made. Accordingly I offer the following proposal. ALS certification votes shall be conducted in such a way that there will be no public disclosure of how ALAC Members voted. However, the details of how ALAC Members voted will be available to ICANN At-Large staff and the ALAC Chair to allow them to conduct private interviews with voters to be able to put together a rationale for why any particular decision was made. Comments? Alan