[council] Regarding voting rules for conflict of interest - proxies

["Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello All,

I see that the latest bylaw suggestions deal with voting on major issues
by those absent from a meeting.   This is a good improvement.

Has any consideration been given to situations of conflicts of interest?

I can recall in the past several instances where a Council member handed
over a proxy to another Council member without voting instructions where
they felt there was a conflict of interest.

For example, at one point the GNSO Council (or it might have been the
DNSO Names Council at the time) voted to recommend a set of criteria for
the rebid of .net.  Most of the Council members that could be involved
in a potential bid for .net abstained (including myself at the time) and
handed their proxies to vote as he saw fit to Alick Wilson at the time
(who was a nominating committee appointee).

I haven't seen an example recently where a Council member has abstained
from voting due to conflict of interest - but I think it is worth
considering the process around that.   Otherwise a Council member may
feel obligated to vote on instructions from their constituency even
where they may have a personal conflict of interest.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin