Question: (Already posted by Stephan Ude, translated by Marc Leisegang)) 1. Regarding the small amount of at large members, are the elections representative? 2. How will further elections be publicized more effectively?

Nominee Replies

Winfried Schueller - posted on 2000-09-26 09:09:07 I think the elections are representative. Everybody who is really concerned about the DNS will take part. Worldwide subscribed more than 70.000 users subsribed. This is much more than anybody expected. The forcast in Cairo has been 20.000. And even regions like Africa, where obviously the community of internet users is much smaller than some where else will place a director which is a very good effort! The work of the Task Forces and Committees was very good, as the result has shown, and I am sure it will be continued for future elections. Jeanette Hofmann - posted on 2000-09-22 17:28:40 1. No, they are not and they are not intended to be. Generally speaking, it would be unfair to compare this first election on the Net with its national equivalents. On the other hand, there are people on ICANN's board who consider this election to be a bad idea in the first place. What we face now seems to be some sort of compromise: elections on a small scale intended to attract several thousands of expert netizens only. Thanks to the German press and some Asian governments, it didn't work out that way. 2. I'd expect that in future commercial and political stakeholders will make great efforts to get as many people as possible registered as voters. Hopefully, they spare us national rivalries... Alf Hansen - posted on 2000-09-21 02:33:48 Remember this is the very first At Large election. The current election procedures are not perfect, but we have at least a mechanism that assures that one person can only vote once, and that there is some probability that the registered member is a real person. Any procedure can be misused, but I think ICANN has done a good job with the recourses available to create some degree of security around the elections. The elections are representative for the current activated membership, but it is not representative for the global Internet community (millions of people). I cannot say exactly how future elections will be publicised, but I am sure that the outreach program can (and will) be improved.