Dear Council members,

 

Many thanks for your input regarding the selection algorithm used in the procedure regarding the appointment of the ccNSO representative on the FY2018 NomCom.

 

The secretariat recognises that the results of method 1 and method 2 are not necessarily equivalent.

 

The ccNSO Guideline Appointment of delegate to the Nominating Committee (https://ccnso.icann.org/workinggroups/appointment-nomcom-delegate-05nov08.pdf) mentions the following:

 

3. Procedure for Selection of a Delegate

[…]

7.Appointment of the delegate to the NomCom by the ccNSO Council. 

In case there is only one nominee, the candidate will be appointed at the first upcoming meeting of the Council. In case more than one candidate is nominated, the Council will take an email vote.  The Nominee who receives a simple majority of the votes cast, is appointed. The voting will be organised by the ccNSO secretariat.  

[…] 

 

The ccNSO Council Practices Guideline https://ccnso.icann.org/about/guidelines-council-practices-09feb17-en.pdf mentions the following:

 

6.1 Decision-making

[…]

In some cases a special procedure is required for decision-making (for example appointing members to a cross-community working group), or as announced by the Chair or Secretariat in the email initiating the decision making process.

[…]

 

The ccNSO Secretariat informed the ccNSO council on 24 July of the selection procedure and the administrative procedure, which mentions:

 

“As agreed the candidate with highest level of preference is considered to be selected.”

 

The wording unfortunately does not provide unambiguous guidance on the calculation method.  Method 1 was the one being used by the secretariat in the case for the ccNSO representative on the FY2018 NomCom. 

Further guidance on how to proceed with the calculation of the results when a special procedure is required for decision-making, and clear wording in the selection/administrative procedure, are appreciated.

 

Thank you.

 

Best regards,

 

Joke Braeken

ccNSO Policy Advisor 

joke.braeken@icann.org

 

Follow @ccNSO on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ccNSO

Follow the ccNSO on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ccnso/

 

 

From: <ccnso-council-bounces@icann.org> on behalf of Margarita Valdes <mvaldes@nic.cl>
Date: Wednesday, 2 August 2017 at 14:10
To: "ccnso-council@icann.org" <ccnso-council@icann.org>
Subject: [ccnso-council] Fwd: ccNSO representative on the FY2018 NomCom

 

Dear colleagues,

In order to help our methods, I share with Patricio our conversation and this was his contribution.

Regards

Margarita

Margarita Valdés Cortés, MBM-UAI

Legal & Business Manager

NIC Chile - University of Chile

www.nic.cl[nic.cl] 

+56229407734

 


Inicio del mensaje reenviado:

De: Patricio Poblete <ppoblete@nic.cl>
Fecha: 1 de agosto de 2017, 13:04:54 CLT
Para: Margarita Valdés Cortés <mvaldes@nic.cl>
Asunto: Re: [ccnso-council] ccNSO representative on the FY2018 NomCom

Margarita,

 

Thanks for letting me know that my name had come up in a discussion of the Council. I have a couple of comments, that you may forward to the Council if you think it is appropriate.

 

(As Patricio and maybe others will recall I was instrumental in the decision of the original ccTLD constituency to use STV in multi-member elections, which was dropped when ICANN V2.0 was rebooted)

 

Nigel is right. The ccTLD Constituency did adopt the STV method for elections with many candidates, after he convinced us it was a good idea.

 

About this particular election, it seems that Pablo would have won in any case, but still, it may be good to make the rules more explicit for the future. Joke says:

 

As agreed the candidate with highest level of preference is considered to be selected.

 

This is OK, as long as everybody agrees about how the "level of preference" is to be computed. However, I see in the conversations that TWO methods are mentioned:

 

Method 1: Assign scores (1=best preference, 2=second best, ..., 5=not preferred at all), add up all scores and the winner is the candidate with the lowest score.

 

Method 2: Count the number of first preference votes.

 

In this case, Pablo wins under both methods, but it worries me that the Secretariat seems to believe that Method 1 and 2 are always equivalent:

 

Pablo Rodriguez still has the lowest total score, in other words: the largest number of first preference votes.

 

But the two methods do not necessarily give the same result, as the following small example (with three candidates A, B, C) shows:

 

        A  B  C
voter1  1  2  3
voter2  1  2  3
voter3  3  2  1
voter4  3  2  1
voter5  2  1  3
Score: 10  9 11

 

So, with Method 1 (lowest score) the winner would be B, but B would lose with Method 2, because only one voter ranked him first.

 

Therefore, I think it would be important for the ccNSO to adopt more explicit rules for future elections.

 

Patricio