Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
Jon Zittrain wrote:
> ...What worries me most is getting the
> electorate to be representative in the first place.
We know that commercial interests will be represented to the extent they are
affected. The non-commercial enduser probably will not. But, that is a worse
problem under head-to-head, single winner electoral systems.
> Suppose the electorate
> were simply the initial members of the ICANN board, or the attendees of the
> July 1998 IFWP meeting.
I haven't heard those seriously proposed.
> 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."
Therefore, no elections? We have already assembled the likely members. ICANN
is no secret. Anyone else with enough interest will figure out how to join, at
least if we stay true to our no/low barrier philosophy.
> To me, a fair electorate is one that's a good cross-section of the population
> affected by the acts of whoever's elected.
That is the ideal.
> 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.
That is fair. But, as we have discussed, it may not produce fair results. That
is being addressed with different mechanisms (such as the NCDH constituency and
the GAC).
> 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.
Was that thought voted up or down? I can't see any merit in this proposal. It
is primarily a concern if we hold "regional" elections (the wisdom of which is
under discussion). The geographic divisions are hugh and meaningless.
Besides, how much is enough? And, what real harm is predicted if there is a
gross disparity?
> 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.
Recruitment won't result in significantly more voters or votes, especially over
the long haul.
> 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.
We are discussing whether to have elections instead of what kind of elections to
hold. Is that debate occurring at the board level, or just among the MAC and
staff?
> 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.
That only tells you where members reside, not whether they are representative of
the interests significantly affected.
> 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.
Again, you are only expressing concern about geographic representation. I want
representation for all the other interests.
> 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.
Joe Enduser will have precious little interest in joining. What do you propose
to remedy that "deficiency?"
> Anyway, presuming a representative membership, cumulative or preferential
> voting (i.e. "rank the candidates you prefer") seems best to me.
How significant is this issue?
> With preferential voting, I can simply tick off in order of preference my,
> say,
> five top candidates.
If there are five seats to be filled? If there are two seats to be filled,
would you get two votes? Or, is this a single winner mechanism?
> 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.
It sounds very interesting. Are all the calculations done by computer
program? Was this mechanism discussed in the MAC?
> Where do you see ICANN about to adopt simple majority, head-to-head,
> winner-take-all elections? For the at-large board or elsewhere?
The proposal, as I understand it, provides for single winner elections in five
divisions of the globe and four "at large" elections staggered over three
years, meaning that at least two will be single winner elections and the other
two can be filled in single winner elections or a single contest in which the
top two vote getters are elected. Sounds like simple majority, head-to-head,
winner take all elections to me.
Have you heard differently?
Best regards.
