Election of ICANN Board - Was: Re: [ga] The Future of Domain Registry Pricing...
I wanted to stay out of this discussion, but maybe better to give my thoughts. The problem I have with the 2000 elections is neither with the method nor the outcome (although I do have something to say on it, see below), but with another element that seems to be forgotten (see further below, if you have enough patience to get to that). The method. I join Veni in the comment that it is rather odd that the outcome of a regional election is determined by a single article on the press. I did not have the cristall ball at that time (and unfortunately I still don't have it), but living in a german-speaking country it has been fairly easy to forecast that a press coverage in Germany would have been launched, considering that at that time France had two ICANN Directors, and Germany none. So something had to be done. Similarly, the "war" between China and Japan started for the AP seat. As I said, I join Veni in being puzzled by this. However, Karl is right in asking: "What's wrong with that?". What is wrong is that we are talking about very very small numbers, compared with the population. I am looking forward to the moment in which an election of ICANN Board members would have full media coverage as much as a political election. However, for the time being, this is not happening. So one single newspaper, or few articles, can determine the result of an election. At that result can be orthogonal to the real issues on the table. I am not ideologically against the method, but believe that in the present situation we have to be prepared to the fact that this method can give odd results. And what I mean by odd results is that the outcome of the election is not necessarily what the Internet community wants: for instance because thousands of people who might have no interest in internet governance do vote pushed by reasons that little have to do with expressing their will (like maybe a nationalistic press campaign or corporate interest), or, even worse, because people who do have an interest in internet governance are not aware or unable to express their opinion (we are all aware of the technical shortcoming of the 2000 elections, so probably there's no need to restart the polemic again). The outcome. All five at-large Directors have been fine Directors. However, their primary role should have been, in the mind of who has conceived the system, the expression of interet users, the people who were not empowere to select the other part of the Board, that was coming from the technical community, the business interests, and so on. Has this goal been achieved? We can discuss forever on this, and I am sure that we have a wide spectrum of opinions on that. My personal observation is that I see more community of views of the internet community with positions expressed today by Directors like Susan Crawford (NomCom selected) or Peter Dengate Thrush (ccTLD selected), to name just two, then with positions expressed by some of the 2000 Directors. Now to the crux of the matter: the voice of the users. Pray tell, with the possible exception of Karl, what was the means of communication put in place by the 2000 at-large Directors to accept input by the internet community, and how was the vote of the individual Directors connected with the positions expressed by the Internet community at that time? I have repeatedly argued that the problem was not to give formal power to 5 or 9 individuals, but to establish a mechanism by which the rank and file could express a voice that then could be brought to the Board. IMHO, it serves no particular purpose, except for window dressing, to be able to formally elect wit a so-called popular vote some individuals, if the community has no other power, past the elections, other than select a different candidate three years later. I think it was in Cairo, but it might have been in Yokohama, when I pointed out this very problem from the floor of the public forum, expressing my opinion against changing the proposed two-tiered system with a direct election, with the argumentation that an elected Director would have remained without any control from the electing body. Sorry to say, but this is exactly what happened, from my personal point of view. Since some of the replies are going to turn the discussion away from the direct election subject, into the ALAC [dys]functioning, I might grab the bull by the horns and comment on that as well. I am not saying that ALAC is the perfect solution, and three years after I started my experience within it, I am far than happy for the results achieved. However, I remain still convinced of one thing: that the key issue is not to have a heavy political debate every three years, and then forget the matter, but how to have a real continuous debate on the issues and how to bring the positions of the internet community to the Board. Sure, we need to have a weight on the Board, otherwise it would be a toothless position, but to me the priority is to create the common view. Best regards, Roberto From: Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
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