Bret, an election for the Chair of ALAC isn't optional - see the ICANN Bylaws, Article XI,S2(4)(d):

"The Chair of the ALAC shall be elected by the members of the ALAC pursuant to procedures adopted by the Committee."

If the objective you seek is that more than one face is 'seen', that could certainly be achieved by having one of the ALAC from the region act as the spokesperson for the community at the ICANN meetings - at public fora, etc - without requiring multiple annual elections of the chair...


On 9 Jul 2007, at 17:00, Bret Fausett wrote:

My proposal didn't envision elections. Only three people are  
involved, so public campaigning, lobbying, and voting won't happen.  
If three reasonable people of good will can't agree, then they can go  
into a closet and do rock-paper-scissors until a winner emerges. Or  
they can share the Chair.

Personally, I don't agree that the ALAC needs a single face, a single  
voice, a single person as a point of contact. Yes, we probably need a  
single email address -- ALAC-Chair@icann.org or something -- but the  
recipients of that email address should be the rotating Executive  
Committee, not one person. I think we will benefit, both functionally  
and in the eyes of the community, from being an organization with  
many voices, many faces, and both a real and perceived ability to  
work together in a relatively flat organizational structure that  
doesn't elevate any one person above the others.

               Bret

On Jul 9, 2007, at 8:32 AM, Nick Ashton-Hart wrote:

With respect to this proposal, perhaps as the staff I could comment
on the idea from the perspective of administrative overhead, and also
perception outside the community:

Firstly, if the chair changes that often, you will have to have some
way to select between the three regional representatives where more
than one of them is willing to serve. This means more elections.
Elections cause a fair amount of administrative overhead, and
generally involve campaigning, lobbying others for votes, etc. This
takes away time from policy discussions and other substantive work.

Secondly, as everyone is well aware, after spending years in
procedural discussions and forming RALOs, those stakeholders outside
of At-Large are very much looking to see how much policy work the
community does. Having just finished forming all the structures, do
you think that those outside of At-Large will see it as a good sign
that you are turning immediately to desiging more administrative
processes which involve elections?


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