RE: [council] Regarding Council voting numbers

["Marilyn Cade" <marilynscade@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think this is very helpful discussion in preparation for next week's vote.

Perhaps Glen, or Maria or Olaf can summarize the formal voting rules and we
can add that into the procedures of Council, so we aren't doing this on the
fly in the future. 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Bruce Tonkin
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 1:33 AM
To: council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: John Jeffrey
Subject: [council] Regarding Council voting numbers

Hello Marilyn,

> 
> As I recall, consensus policy takes 2/3s majority. Due to 
> weighted voting there are 27 total votes. However, with one 
> vacancy of the Nominating Committee appointees, there are 
> actually only 26 votes. Thus 2/3s would be of the 26 votes, 
> not 27. 

Yes - there are currently only 26 votes able to be cast.
See paragraph 8, of section 3, article X, of the ICANN bylaws.
http://www.icann.org/general/bylaws.htm#X

The number of votes relates to 
"total number of votes of GNSO Council members then in office"

Also:
"Members entitled to cast a majority of the total number of votes of
GNSO Council members then in office shall constitute a quorum for the
transaction of business, and acts by a majority vote of the GNSO Council
members present at any meeting at which there is a quorum shall be acts
of the GNSO Council, unless otherwise provided herein."

Thus members representing a total of 14 votes would be required to
achieve quorum, and 8 votes would be the minimum required to make a
decision.

Note that there are also notice provisions - so it is not possible to
call a meeting without notice and make decisions amongst a subset of
Council members.


> 
> Then, 2/3s would be .... 17 votes, or 18 votes? I think it is 
> 17.4, which would be 17. 

""Supermajority Vote" means a vote of more than sixty-six (66) percent
of the members present at a meeting of the applicable body."

So if 26 votes were able to be cast during a meeting, then a total of 18
votes would be necessary for a supermajority vote.

Note however that it is possible to get a supermajority vote from a
meeting with members only having a total of 14 votes.   (ie if you had
10 votes in favour when a total of 14 votes is available at a meeting)

Whenever we have an important vote - I endeavour to ensure that we have
all available votes cast (ie 26 votes) and I will recommend delaying a
vote to another meeting if that can't be achieved.

With respect to policy:
(From Section 12, of Annex A)

"A Supermajority Vote of the Council members will be deemed to reflect
the view of the Council, and may be conveyed to the Board as the
Council's recommendation. Abstentions shall not be permitted; thus all
Council members must cast a vote unless they identify a financial
interest in the outcome of the policy issue."

Thus in putting forward a policy recommendation to the Board, we would
need to record the votes from all members of Council.  This is presently
a total of 26 votes.   A Supermajority vote of all Council members in
this context would need 18 or more votes.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin