Question: How would you rectify that members from Austria, Germany and Switzerland have a disproportional share of the voting power? In Europe five people who have the institutional power to advertise themselves were placed on the ballot without endorsement. Next time noone should be set on the ballot. Your opinion?

Nominee Replies

Winfried Schueller - posted on 2000-09-26 09:41:40 This election is the first try to ensure a broad and multicultural representation in the BoD. The election process is not yet perfect and has to be improved. Therefore I will do my best to ensure a fair and equal election for the next upcoming votes, in the case I will be elected. In my opinion, it would not be fair to the candidates if none of the countries listed above will be able to participate at the next elections. Winfried Schueller - posted on 2000-09-26 09:37:15 This election is the first try to ensure a broad and multicultural representation in the BoD. The election process is not yet perfect and has to be improved. Therefore I will do my best to ensure a fair and equal election for the next upcoming votes, in the case I will be elected. In my opinion, it would not be fair to the candidates if none of the countries listed above will be able to participate at the next elections. Andy Mueller-Maguhn - posted on 2000-09-23 16:13:50 The voting procedure shows up how ICANN currently works; that is not really democratic or bottom-up legimated. At least not yet. The current at large process seems to be something like an legimitation-simulation even if it is a step in the right direction. The disproportional share of voters is not only an indicator, that ICANN organized this election more in a passiv-marketing way (you could have ordered/participate in it, if you know, that it exists), it is also showing up that there is a different level of public discussion about the information society and internet issues. So I do see this as a change to support this discussion(s) also. I do not only agree, that there shouldn´t be any committee nominated candidates, there should be more possibilities of participation for at-large members in the decision-making (procedures) of icann at all. Jeanette Hofmann - posted on 2000-09-19 19:24:39 Nothing can be done about the national imbalance of registered members & voters in Europe. By and large, this is an effect of differing degrees of press coverage. To date, the German press takes an active interest in this election while there is almost none in other European countries. Hopefully, this changes with future elections on the Net. Regarding the officially nominated candidates: As far as I understand ICANN's board members were concerned about the qualification of self-nominated candidates. This is why they decided to make some suggestions. In principle, I have no problem with a list of proposed candidates. However, it is obviously undemocratic that they didn't need to get endorsed by the members. Furthermore, I found it quite shocking that in Europe 5 out of 7 places on the ballot were taken by pre-nominated candidates. This should definitely not happen again. In any case, the rules of future elections may depend on the actual strength of the At Large Membership ;-) Alf Hansen - posted on 2000-09-16 05:48:44 In every election there is a nomination process. In this case the nomination ended up with 5 nom com candidates an 2 self nom. candidates. The process itself has been open. It is not useful right now to discuss the current election process, but it is relevant now to discuss how the next process should be. My personal opinion is that an open process with a nom com combined with a free self nom process, like the current one, is a good thing. The ratio between number of nom com candidates and self nom candidates can be discussed further. Perhaps the next elcetion a 50-50 rsatio will be more correct. Olivier Muron - posted on 2000-09-15 07:48:24 I dont think one should rectify the numbers: they just show very diverse implication on the issue accross Europe. I don't want to comment on the election process itself now, while we are in the middle of the road. The Board will launche a complete study of the election process, in order to decide how to elect /select or apponint the next At Large Board Members. This study should be presented during the first semester of 2001. Let us do better next time!