Question: What do you think about the voting mechanism used for the Member-nomination process ? I think this mechanism helped the @large members to focus there attention on a handful of candidates. It also could help the 23519 voters in Europe to really agree onto one candidate during the voting procedure.

Nominee Replies

Maria Cattaui - posted on 2000-09-15 09:34:08 ICANN has received a lot of criticism for how it is managing the At-large voting process. I think they deserve a break. After all this process is an experiment. I believe in experimentation because it tells you not only what is right, but what is wrong. Thus, I would certainly be wary of locking in one process too soon. In the “alphabet” of Information Technology, we all know that Beta comes before Alpha! The same rule applies here. The technical and communication hick-ups will all be visible when the election process is over. Only then will we start to understand how the ICANN culture forms its own democratic processes. In this case, we cannot apply rules or expectations from another system, because every democratic organization, just like every democratic nation, evolves its own voting procedures, which are best adapted to its own dynamics. Olivier Muron - posted on 2000-09-14 02:54:25 You should examine carefully the single transferable voting system that will be used during the vote: you can choose a set of candidates in order of preference. Jeanette Hofmann - posted on 2000-09-11 15:07:43 You are probably referring to the fact that the number of the candidates' endorsements were made public during the endorsement period. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, this indeed has helped to push 2 candidates over the 2% threshold. On the other hand, this procedure has made popular candidates even more popular. Thus, we succeeded to nominate 2 European candidates but at the expense of basic democratic principles. In my view, this is an acceptable way to go for the first elections, as one could assume that most if not all self nominated candidates were rather unknown to the voters. For future elections, however, I would argue for a strengthening of the democratic principles. Alf Hansen - posted on 2000-09-11 04:35:43 There wil allway elpapse a time from sending a membership application to beein registerre as an active member. I am not an expert of voting mechanisms, but in my opinion the current endorsement mechanism for the member-nomination process has been fair enough. Waiting for a PIN is frustrating. I am sure that *everybody* will get their PINs, but not in time for the endorsement. Delay this will not solve the problem, because there will ALLWAYS be poeple waiting for their PIN. What ICANN could do, is to review the current process and make sure it is well documented that ICANN is handling the applications according to the defined procedures in an effective way.