<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Thanks, Tapani. I think we may want to approach this from a different angle. Instead of trying to come up with an interpretation for NOTA, let’s come up with a mechanism that clearly achieves our goal. It probably isn’t even called “NOTA”.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">What we are actually after is a way to make sure that every candidate faces a Yes or No option, so someone can’t win by default, and there must actually be <b class=""><i class="">approval</i></b> of the candidate by the membership to be our representative. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">What is the best way to device that goal in the ballot? Perhaps simply a yes-no-abstain choice for each candidate would suffice? Then the x candidates with the most yes votes are winners (as long as they have more yes than no votes). We would need a procedure for how to handle the theoretical case in which there isn’t enough candidates approved by the membership to fill slots, but that is easily devised.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Thanks,</div><div class="">Robin</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jun 26, 2017, at 9:46 AM, Tapani Tarvainen via Election-reform <<a href="mailto:election-reform@lists.ncsg.is" class="">election-reform@lists.ncsg.is</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="">Dear all,<br class=""><br class="">I'd like to get some feedback on the charter requirements.<br class=""><br class="">As you see there's no mention of NotA there. I can think<br class="">of three ways to interpret it:<br class=""><br class="">A. The charter does not allow NotA at all.<br class=""><br class="">B. NotA can be considered a candidate.<br class=""><br class="">C. NotA can be thought of as allowed implicitly, by default,<br class=""> as most elections in general have something like it.<br class=""><br class="">Opinions?<br class=""><br class="">Other interpretations I haven't thought of?<br class=""><br class="">Tapani<br class=""><br class="">On Jun 26 11:00, Tapani Tarvainen via Election-reform (<a href="mailto:election-reform@lists.ncsg.is" class="">election-reform@lists.ncsg.is</a>) wrote:<br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><br class="">Dear all,<br class=""><br class="">As time is running short, I think it's better to start with<br class="">potentially most difficult issues and ones that *must* be<br class="">resolved before the netx elections. So let's have a go at NotA.<br class=""><br class="">Initially I have two criteria I think must be met:<br class=""><br class="">(1) Compatibility with our charter, at least some reasonable<br class="">interpretation of it.<br class=""><br class="">(2) Clarity. It should be easy to understand what the rules<br class="">actually mean in any foreseeable situation.<br class=""><br class="">Feel free to suggest additions or comment on those.<br class=""><br class="">Regarding the first, here's the most relevant part of our Charter:<br class=""><br class=""><br class="">4.3 Election for NCSG GNSO Council Representatives (size, number, and<br class="">distribution of votes):<br class=""><br class="">In the discussion below, N refers to the number of seats that need to<br class="">be elected. Optimally N will equal 3 seats in years with normal<br class="">rotation. Any number of reasons can cause this number to vary.<br class=""><br class="">• NCSG members classified as “individuals” will be given N votes and<br class="">must assign 1 vote to each of N candidates.<br class=""><br class="">• NCSG members classified as “small organizations” will be given 2N<br class="">votes and must assign exactly 2 votes to each of N candidates.<br class=""><br class="">• NCSG members classified as “large organizations” will be given 4N<br class="">votes and must assign exactly 4 votes to each of N candidates.<br class=""><br class=""><br class="">4.4 Election of NCSG Chair (size and number of votes):<br class=""><br class="">• NCSG members classified as “individuals” will be given 1 vote.<br class=""><br class="">• NCSG members classified as “small organizations” will be given 2<br class="">votes.<br class=""><br class="">• NCSG members classified as “large organizations” will be given 4<br class="">votes.<br class=""><br class="">• Members must cast all their votes for a single candidate.<br class=""><br class=""><br class="">The full charter is here, feel free to point out other things<br class="">there you think are relevant:<br class=""><br class=""><a href="https://gnso.icann.org/en/improvements/ncsg-charter-05may11-en.pdf" class="">https://gnso.icann.org/en/improvements/ncsg-charter-05may11-en.pdf</a><br class=""><br class="">-- <br class="">Tapani Tarvainen<br class=""></blockquote>_______________________________________________<br class="">Election-reform mailing list<br class=""><a href="mailto:Election-reform@lists.ncsg.is" class="">Election-reform@lists.ncsg.is</a><br class="">https://lists.ncsg.is/mailman/listinfo/election-reform<br class=""></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></body></html>