Eric,
Some thoughts:
1/ Pile-up-single-ballots electoral system vs. cumulative voting. There's
an important distinction to be made, here--and, as you point out, the MAC
was well on to it--but to me the distinction is really only meant to solve
problems of properly allocating power *within* an electorate this is
already broadly representative. What worries me most is getting the
electorate to be representative in the first place. Suppose the electorate
were simply the initial members of the ICANN board, or the attendees of the
July 1998 IFWP meeting. No matter what scheme you use to weigh and tally
votes among them, it'd be hard to generate a satisfactory election, since
the electorate itself wouldn't approximate what we think of as "fair." To
me, a fair electorate is one that's a good cross-section of the population
affected by the acts of whoever's elected. To others, a fair electorate is
seen as one for which any member of the affected population had an
opportunity to join--regardless of how many actually do join or exercise
their rights to vote.
One way the MAC thought of to approach this was regional minimums, whether
absolute or relative, in the initial ICANN electorate: no election takes
place until at least n number of members from Africa, say, are signed
up. Some saw this as just another excuse to delay ("Gee, I guess there
isn't a quorum, so no election this month...") and others hated the idea of
dragging people in to sign up for something they wouldn't otherwise care
about. The danger is, if one allows membership to happen
organically--without serious outreach--the composition of the membership
may or may not be representative of the Internet at-large. Where we
roughly came out was to collect cumulative demographic information about
members as they join, so there'd be some sense of whether the membership
was in the ballpark or not with respect to representation. A membership
with 1,000 members, 900 of which hail from the U.S., and 800 of which from
Washington, DC would be troublesome, at least to those who care about
representativeness.
Some on this list don't fret about the internet user in the street having a
voice in ICANN--they believe that ICANN's members should comprise the elite
who actually know enough about what's going on (and care) to be able to
know one acronym from another. Others want extra power in the hands of
rank-and-file users, precisely because they can't be reasonably expected to
participate on the playing fields that the elite are using, even though
they're affected by the decisions. I've found that this disagreement is
often the real point of contention in arguments about membership and voting.
Anyway, presuming a representative membership, cumulative or preferential
voting (i.e. "rank the candidates you prefer") seems best to me. With
preferential voting, I can simply tick off in order of preference my, say,
five top candidates. If my first choice turns out to be in last place once
all the first-choice votes are counted, my vote is transferred to my
second-choice candidate. After that's done, whoever is in last place has
her votes transferred upward, etc., until only one candidate remains for
the seat. Thus my vote can "count" even if I initially "throw it away" on
a longshot candidate--thus encouraging me to vote for the longshot/minority
candidate if that's who I really favor.
Where do you see ICANN about to adopt simple majority, head-to-head,
winner-take-all elections? For the at-large board or elsewhere?
2/ Supermajorities. This seems an important tool to guarantee accounting
of minority views, at least in board decisions (as compared to election of
at-large board members)--if ICANN is to be a consensus organization also
sensitive to minority views, consensus defined as "general agreement,"
rather than a bare 51% support, supermajority requirements help prevent it
from making the mistake of moving forward with policies that really are
controversial simply because they've got a simple majority on the
board. Overuse it, though, and it may risk institutional paralysis--the
same way that process, which is as important as substance, can at some
point overwhelm any chance of getting things done. Some people say, "C'mon
already, ICANN--if you're serious about competition, just add some new
TLDs." It's the process that slows it down at the same time as it
hopefully ensures consensus by the time the proposal is enacted: the Board
gets the idea; it goes to the DNSO; the DNSO passes it to its
constituencies; the constituencies chew it over--perhaps offering differing
views that then have to be reconciled; a recommendation comes back to the
Board; the Board decides; someone invokes internal reconsideration
provisions; the Board goes forward anyway; someone goes for the Independent
Review Panel; the Panel renders an opinion; the Board again
decides. Whew! It seems all the more ponderous when one realizes that the
same people are populating the organization up and down the
hierarchies--and why not, since it seems there are currently roughly 2-300
people in the world who take an active enough interest in ICANN to
volunteer for a committee or constituency, attend a meeting, etc.
There's also the "stakeholder" problem: one can define stakes so many
different ways. What if current big stakeholders don't support a proposal
precisely because it will disadvantage them? A reasonable enough position
to take. If ICANN's simply a trade association/industry standards body,
the decision goes the way the big stakeholders want it. (Think W3C.) If
it's something else--acting in a "public interest" that must be gauged, and
defended, somewhat independent of what the current "big" players want--the
organization needs a measure of independence from the very stakeholders who
are best mobilized to be heard and to influence. The "quiet" stakeholders
include the ones having a tough time organizing right now: individuals,
non-commercial players, etc. They may be every bit as big numbers-wise,
but certainly not noise-wise--nor measured literally $ to gain or lose by
ICANN decisions.
This is one reason why the constituencies seem so unwieldy to me, and the
arbitrariness of their definition is clear: commercial trademark interests
get votes both through the tm and commercial constituencies; include
individuals within non-commercial and they get one set, include them as
part of an IDNO and they get two. Funny, though: I was there in Singapore
when it seemed clear that consensus had been built around the
constituency-based DNSO proposal. At the time it must have seemed like pie
slices for everyone.
...Jonathan
At 08:23 PM 7/12/99, Eric Weisberg wrote:
>
>Jon,
>
>I greatly appreciate your active and gentlemanly participation in this and
>other lists. As always, it is difficult to
>>discuss significant issues without our various differences becoming (or
>>appearing) personal rather than substantive. You have cleved to the
>>higher ground. And, while some have faulted you for taking an
>>"establishment" point of view, I consider that a major benefit to all
>>involved. You discussion of substantive issues has given others an
>>opportunity to participate in a meaningful dialog (with you, at least).
>>
>>The concerns you express, while your own, are probably shared by members
>>of the ICANN board (and others in positions of influence). Therefore, it
>>is incumbent on anyone who is serious about affecting the course of these
>>proceedings to take advantage of the opportunity you have provided and
>>address those concerns, many of which are universally held. The most
>>critical concern is avoiding capture by an electorate (with a "preferred"
>>solution being undefined and, thus, not discussed).
>>
>>Jon Zittrain wrote:
>> ...The problem goes a level higher with membership, too: make
>> membership open, and
>> there's a danger that whoever can push enough people to the ballot box
>> can
>> take the election, regardless of what the "overall" community
>> preference might be.
>>
>>If a "majority" electoral system is too easily subject to capture, should
>>we employ an electoral system designed to represent diverse interests on
>>the board (which I believe is the reason the MAC recommended cumulative
>>voting) and/or resort to supermajorities for resolution of core
>>issues? I have not seen serious consideration of either mechanism by
>>those making the decisions. Indeed, it appears we are headed in the
>>opposite direction. ICANN is about to adopt a system of head-to-head,
>>majority take all, single winner elections.
>>
>>What are you thoughts on this?
>>
