[NCG-EL-REF] Election reform: agenda

[Tapani Tarvainen]

Dear all,

Reviewing the list below I have a few items to add:

* NCSG Charter 2.4.3. says that in the event there's a vacancy in the
Chair, the NCSG-EC will choose an interim chair _until an election can
be scheduled_. That indicates the interim chair would not stay until
next regular election but a special election would be called for,
unless the regular election is close - but how close?
And if a special election is called for, does it need special
rules, like different time limits than regular elections?

* There are a number of elections done by Executive, Policy and
Finance committees (chairs of the latter two, vice chairs of all,
temporary councillors, interim Chair mentioned above). Should
we try to define procedures or guidelines for them, too?
E.g.,  Policy Committee Chair is elected by PC membership "on a yearly
basis". Does that need to be clarified - when should that happen?
Like, within X weeks after new councillors and Chair (who make
up most of the PC) start their term? Likewise for Finance Committee.

These are less urgent in that they don't directly affect the
forthcoming regular elections, however, and can left for later
or up to the respective committees to decide for themselves.
But I thought it'd be good to highlight them for the record.

I will try to put the issues in some kind of priority order
and start going through them one by one (hopefully soon).

Tapani


On Mar 11 15:48, Tapani Tarvainen via Election-reform (election-reform at lists.ncsg.is) wrote:

> Dear all,
> 
> Elections will be upon us again soon enough, it's high time to restart
> discussion about them.
> 
> Besides the infamous None-of-the-Above thing, there're a number of
> other issues that should be decided or at least documented,
> procedures, terms in charter that are open to interpretation &c.
> 
> While these mostly are the responsibility of the Executive Committee,
> I think they merit discussion with wider audience, and this list was
> created just fot the purpose. If we can come up with a consensus here,
> I'm sure the EC will be happy to follow it. And of course it may be
> necessary to bring some issues to the full ncsg-discuss list at some
> point.
> 
> Below is an initial list of issues I came up with. It's not very
> well-organized, indeed they clearly overlap in places, I just tríed to
> collect all issues I could think of - please feel free to suggest
> additions. My idea is that we could then work through the list
> piecemeal, one issue at a time (of course backtracking as needed if we
> realize we've missed something earlier).
> 
> As a general point, we’re bound by NCSG Charter, GNSO operating
> procedures and ICANN Bylaws. While they could be changed, and indeed
> we should make a list of things in our own Charter that we should
> consider changing, for now we'll have to work with it as is.
> 
> (1) Procedures
> * who does what
>   Chair, EC, do we need exceptions if Chair is a candidate &c
> * general timeline
> * ballot format
> 
> (2) Interpretation of eligibility and limitation rules
> * Term limits (this comes from GNSO OP, just needs to be opened up so
>   everybody understands them)
> * Regional balance: what exactly does "to the maximum extent possible" mean?
>   What constitutes "reasonable effort"?
>   If there's doubt about someone's region (people with multiple citizenships &c),
>   how should they be handled?
> * Gender balance: "under no circumstance" - if there aren't enough candidates
>   of one gender, what should we do?
>   What constitutes "reasonable effort"?
>   What about transgender or intersex people?
> * How do the above apply to temporary alternates and replacements?
>   Presumably they generally bind EC similarly to elections, but could the
>   EC bypass a totally incompetent candidate from minority gender or
>   region in favour of a qualified one from an overrepresented gender
>   or region?
> 
> (3) Voting process
> * Time limits, deadlines
> * How to break ties (preference to minorities, lottery, something else?)
> * Keep using ICANN staff to manage elections or consider something else?
> * Exception handling (should ICANN staff react to bad ballots?)
> * What happens if a candidate pulls out half-way?
> * When should elections be cancelled and restarted, who decides and how?
> * If an organization's representative is also an individual member,
>   can they vote in both roles?
> 
> (4) NotA
> * Should there be a NotA option at all? Does our Charter even allow it?
> * How should NotA be interpreted in affecting results?
> * Should there perhaps be separate options "I don't care" and "I want
>   new elections rather than accept that guy" or the like?
> * How should NotA be presented in the ballot?
> 
> 
> -- 
> Tapani Tarvainen