As agreed at the conf call today, I would like to move this discussion at the San Juan meeting in a closed and face-to-face meeting. I like to say, in advnace, that even some people think this is "administrative", and it will largely be so, there will be cases which may be seen as more "political" or substantive than just administrative. I also like to say, sometimes abstention is used to show certain will, not yes not no, and we should also respect that. Making it black or what looks simpler and better, I respectfuly disagree. And as I emphasized in the conference call, we have very different values and ideas about how election/voting/decisions be made on this planet earth by region. I have seen it happened at the first "global" AtLarge Director election - but to me at that time it was seen as "experiment" and people did not pay much attention to the basic rule of election/voting - the result is to terminate the election as a whole. So we should be really careful for some of the seemingly monior points to think of the unintended or unexpeted consequesnce and interpretations. izumi 2007/6/13, Jacqueline A. Morris <jam@jacquelinemorris.com>:
Hi Siavash Yet again, I think that abstention is a specific tool for use in very limited situations - one being in the case of a conflict of interest - voting on one's own organization, for example. Using it because one chooses not to make a decision - on something controversial for example, to me is not doing the job that we were put here to do. There is time for discussion within the ALAC. If someone has questions or disagrees with the regional recommendation, I think that is a cause for discussion - maybe that person has seen something that the region missed, or the region has information that the person is lacking. In either case, we should discuss it so that the decision is made with the most information possible. If your decision is no - then it should be entered as such, and not as an abstention to spare the feelings of the region.
Abstentions do not count as no, but they do count as we have rules that require a certain number of valid votes. If not enough valid (yes/no) votes are cast (too many abstentions), as has happened in the last voting cycle, then the applicant is in limbo - neither certified nor rejected with a clear list of reasons. The application may continue to have many abstentions and not enough votes for voting session after voting session after voting session. Will they then stay in limbo? They don't get any reasons for the abstentions, and they aren't rejected and given reasons so they can change to fit the criteria if they so desire.
This vote is an administrative function. We have criteria to apply. Either the organisation meets the criteria or it doesn't. If it doesn't, the ALAC has a requirement to say why. So, the people who vote no should have a requirement to say why - otherwise how can we send the reasons to the applicant? The criteria do not have an automatic yes free pass for a developing country, and I would never suggest such a thing.
With regard to influence, we will probably need to add some more questions to the application form and the DD form to be able to have more than a "strong suspicion" of undue influence from any sector - and we should move to include this in the criteria in a very specific way. But generally, if one member of the ALAC has this sort of information, I think that it should be shared with the whole and discussed. But I still don't think that it should mean abstention - in cases like this, it should mean that we go back to the applicant and ask for clarification, or to the staff doing the due diligence and ask for more information.
This seems to me to be the fairest, most objective way to look at these applicants. We owe it to them to get all the information, to consider and discuss, and to vote Yes or No in a timely manner except in the most rare of circumstances in which case an abstention can be cast, and to give them reasons for rejection so that they are not left in limbo.
Jacqueline
-----Original Message----- From: Siavash Shahshahani [mailto:shahshah@irnic.ir] Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 9:21 AM To: jam@jacquelinemorris.com Cc: 'Vittorio Bertola'; 'At-Large Worldwide' Subject: Re: [At-Large] ALS accreditation votes
I feel that I have to throw in my two cents as the person who has perhaps contributed the greatest number of abstentions in the last 18 months. This does not go against my earlier statement that I will not further discuss my votes; it is just a discussion of general principles, no specific votes. 1.I don't agree with Jacqueline's characterization of abstentions as cop-outs; why couldn't the same term apply to all abstention votes in all voting situations as well? (Maybe you think it should.) On ALS applications abstention has generally had a clear message. At least in my case, when I had to go against the majority recommendation of the region, I abstained. I did explain this explicitly on at least on occasion saying that I abstained out of respect for the regional recommendation. So it was really a courteous no vote(and counted effectively as a 'no' because of the affirmation vote required). In cases where a party's application is rejected, I don't see why the majority could not get together and write an explanation.
2. In addition to formal ICANN by law criteria, my personal guide to voting has been my understanding of what 'at-large' really is. I have abstained or said 'no' when I had a strong suspicion that the particular candidate was under governmental or special-interest influence. Sometimes this is not so easy to discern, specially in the case of developing countries where govt influence is often very pervasive. Nevertheless, one could still look for clues of independence and autonomy; I wouldn't go for an automatic 'yes' just because the application comes from a less-developed country. Siavash
Hi Vittorio I agree that abstention should be rarely used, such as in cases of conflict of interest for example. Members of the ALAC should cast a valid vote - yes or no. Reasons for a rejection must be given by the ALAC as a whole, but those reasons do not necessarily have to be broken down by name of committee member. If we go the motions route, given that we vote pretty much as soon as the DD is ready, it may make the length of the process pass the 90 day deadline. Jacqueline
-----Original Message----- From: Vittorio Bertola [mailto:vb@bertola.eu] Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2007 9:34 AM To: At-Large Worldwide Subject: [At-Large] ALS accreditation votes
I am moving the discussion to the global list - I really think that this is a matter that affects the entire constituency, not just the current ALAC members.
[The discussion is about modalities of voting for ALS accreditation - in particular, whether ALAC members who abstain or vote against should be required to provide explicit reasons for doing so, and whether individual votes should remain public as it is now, or be kept confidential.]
One ALAC member wrote:
- No matter what voting approach we apply (e.g. secret voting, opened voting), more important is the FEEDBACK we provide to the ALS applicants. So, that they are able to improve their structure/activities/priorities according to the established/provided criterias. For this purpose, the ALAC should provide a Letter with Recommendations on
behalf of the entire Committee.
I agree with you on this. However, the problem we have is that the failure to approve is the result of the sum of individual opinions, so when the applicant asks "why did you reject my application, and what do I have to do to improve?", you do not have an answer... perhaps there is no answer, since the people that did not vote in favour might have done so for very different reasons.
I understand that some people might be afraid about having to explain why they took a position against, especially in countries where there might be social backlash arising from that. But it is also unreasonable to deny participatory rights to someone, and when asked why, either say "we don't know" (which makes it look like the Committee is not serious and does not think before acting) or "we refuse to tell you" (which is even worse).
In the end, excluding someone from the constituency in which they want to participate is quite a serious action, that must be backed by strong and clear reasons, also because it might (and will, in most cases) be subject to appeal to the Ombudsman or to the Board.
Perhaps, if individual members have a problem in expressing themselves publicly, we could change the system so that, in the due diligence phase, those who are against write a motion to reject, stating also the reasons why they think that the application should be rejected. In that way, on the ballot you would have to pick one of two motions, one saying "yes" and one saying "no, because..."; in that case, if the "no" prevails, there would already be collective reasons stated and there would be no need for members to provide explanations individually.
So, basically we would have: - a due diligence phase as usual; - before the deadline for starting the vote, any member can privately submit to the Chair a motion against, if he/she thinks that the application is to be rejected; the author(s) of the motion shall remain confidential; - if no motions against are proposed, the application is approved on a "no objections" basis; - if there are motions against, then we vote (publicly or privately, as we prefer) and we have a clear result.
I would really like to get rid of abstentions - they were meant only for direct conflict of interests (e.g. voting on one's own organization), but in the end either the application meets the criteria, or it doesn't - members should not refrain from taking a position on that, and in the end, they can still not vote at all. -- vb. Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu <-------- --------> finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/ <--------
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