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3. Creation of List of Candidates

The selection of the list of candidates who will be eligible for the Director election is perhaps one of the most difficult issues. It is relatively easy to list the criteria, but then one must either narrow the field to a manageable number, or expect the electorate to do it.

Methodologies:

The alternatives cover a very wide range. At one end, we could let anyone self-identify themselves (or be nominated by one individual) and they would be on the ballot. At the other end of the range, people could be nominated (self or by others), but a select group of people would review the candidates and select the winner. The latter is effectively how the ICANN Nominations Committee process works.

The NARALO brainstorming session resulted in a mid-ground proposal that has since received significant support.

a)At-Large selects members for an At-Large Board Selection Committee (ABSC)

·The group was originally referred to as a "Nominating Committee", but it was felt that would be too confusing with the ICANN NomCom.

·The composition of the ABSC was not discussed in detail, but one suggested option was that each RALO would appoint or elect two people to the ABSC, well in advance of each election. Past ICANN NomCom members might be good choices.

b)The ABSC is tasked with creating a list of candidates, which is made public.

·There were many comments that the ABSC should not just passively wait to hear from interested At-Large insiders, but should also identify and solicit candidacy from people who would qualify and may be seen to fulfil the positions. There should be a diversity of choices in the list of candidates, but qualified people should not be excluded because there are "too many" from any one region, gender, or other relevant characteristic.

·Through a process of questionnaires and/or interviews, the ABSC would reduce the total list of applicants to some “small” number of candidates.

c)RALOs may add (a limited number of) “petition” candidates to the list supplied by the ABSC.

·This was added to allow individuals with strong grassroots support to be advanced as candidates despite being overlooked (or rejected) by the ABSC.

·Any individual wanting to be a candidate in this fashion must be sponsored by at least one RALO

·Additions made at this stage should be limited to only one or two per region

Though the issue has not been discussed much by the community, existing practise (such as SO appointments to the Board) suggests that a strong incumbent may have little or no opposition. While the ABSC must make every effort not to be seen to prefer acclamation over election, it is also important that the process allows for such a scenario. This, amongst other issues, will be considered during a review to be conducted after the first Director is placed.

Discussion:

It is well understood that good replies on a questionnaire or even performance in an interview do not correspond to good performance later. The (occasional) failures of the ICANN NomCom testify to that. However, it is not clear that a declaration that a person meets all of the criteria along with a candidate’s statement will provide electors with sufficient information to make an informed choice either.

The original desire to limit terms to one year was generally based on the concern that the “wrong” person may be appointed. This concern is well founded, given that there will no longer be an ALAC Liaison sitting on the Board, and unlike the SOs, At-Large will have only one Board Member instead of two. In the SO case, if a poor selection is occasionally made, there is still another person sitting on the Board selected by that SO. At-Large will have no such fall-back.

Accordingly, it is important that the At-Large Community does whatever possible to vet all candidates to ensure that they are credible Board material. Given that, the concept of a small group of people doing the vetting seems reasonable. The group must be sufficiently small to be able to function effectively, yet sufficiently large to allow it to continue to function if some members do not ‘pull their weight’ (which is virtually inevitable). The selection of the Chair of the group would also be critical to its effectiveness.

The issue of confidentiality versus transparency has been an issue with the ICANN NomCom. Some people feel that the NomCom should be far more open regarding who is applying and what the rationale is for making the selections that it does. Others feel that if all applications are not confidential, some people may not apply. If references are not confidential (both who is acting as a reference and the content of their input), fewer people would be willing to give references, and the contents may not be as candid. If deliberations were not confidential, people on the committee might vote to select who their constituents feel should be selected instead of who they believe is best based on the information available to them. The secrecy of the ABSC is balanced by the fact that – unlike in the case of the ICANN NomCom – it only supplies a list of best-qualified candidates and does not make the final choice itself.

There has been little substantive discussion outside of the original NARALO meeting on the concept of the ABSC, but there has been no known objection to the process.

There has been little discussion of the number of candidates to be selected by the ABSC. Two is probably too few, and four or five may be too many.

The concept of having additional people put on the slate was added during the NARALO discussion to allow for cases where there was a strong feeling that an important candidate had been ignored by the ABSC. In discussions since that time, opinions have been raised saying that each RALO may regularly add one or two or more candidates to the list – perhaps each adding their favourite son/daughter to the list. If that indeed happens, it suggests that the ABSC is not properly doing its job, and that the community has no faith in it – both of which point to failure. It also would imply that a significant part of the slate may not have been subjected to sufficient vetting, or had explicitly failed that vetting. A countering view suggested that the RALO additions should be reserved for circumstances considered to be extraordinary, and not normally be done by every region for every election.

In other elections, the concept of candidates being added after the nominating process is often accompanied by a “petition”, a requirement that a reasonable part of the electorate or community support the addition of such a person. It has since been suggested that in the present case, the equivalent would be for the person to be added to the slate only if their candidacy is supported by several RALOs. Although such support is not a guarantee of a later vote for the candidate, support from more than one regiondoes mean that not only the originating RALO believes that the person would make a good candidate AND a good At-Large Board member. There is still some potential for “I’ll agree to your additional candidate if you agree to mine”, but hopefully this would not be major phenomena and that petition candidates would only be proposed in extraordinary circumstances.

During the NARALO brainstorm, one popular view suggested that, after all the candidates – those selected by the ABSC combined with those petitioned by RALOs – were identified, the RALOs would further reduce (and possibly order) the list. On reflection this step appears to be redundant with other processes already identified.

Regarding the situation where there is an incumbent At-Large Board member, the question is whether there should be special provisions which would allow this person to seek re-appointment un-opposed. To the extent that the person is doing a good job on behalf of At-Large and that it is to the benefit of At-Large to have a Director who is in a senior Board position, this would be a good thing. On the other hand, issues of fairness and transparency call for the Director to actually have the conscious support of At-Large for such re-appointment. Moreover, if an incumbent has strong community support, it is only fair that other potential candidates know this ahead of time.

Recommendation: 3

The selection of candidates to comprise the election slate should be made by an At-Large Board Selection Committee. The ABSC should be composed of two representatives from each ICANN region and a Chair. The Chair shall be selected by the ALAC and the chair shall have a vote. All ABSC members will need to confirm their willingness and ability to dedicate significant time to the process.

All documents and deliberations of the ABSC shall be confidential and this confidentiality shall continue past the existence of any particular ABSC.

A Statement of Interest (SOI) form should be created with due haste by the ABSdt (and ABSC as soon as it is formed). The creation of this form shall be done in an open and non-confidential manner.

Any person can submit a SOI on their own behalf. A person who has not submitted a SOI within pre-determined deadlines may not be considered by the ABSC.

A past ICANN NomCom Chair or Vice-chair will be requested to work with ABSdt on finalizing the details of the SOI and the ABSC operating rules.

Petition candidates need to have gone through the ABSC process and may be added to the slate proposed by ABSC by a formal request of RALOs. A petition will require the support of at least three of the five RALOs.

As part of the review of these processes (to be conducted after the first At-Large Director is selected), consideration should be given to future election processes allowing ALAC and/or RALOs to indicate support for the incumbent At-Large Director in advance of the ABSC collection of SOIs, as a matter of courtesy and fair notice to potential new candidates.

Notes and Appendices:

Members of the White Paper drafting team

  • Sébastien Bachollet
  • Alan Greenberg
  • Dave Kissoondoyal
  • Cheryl Langdon-Orr
  • Evan Leibovitch
  • Carlton Samuels

Related web pages and links:

ABS%20White%20Paper_FINAL_11012011_EN.pdf

Call%20for%20community%20Comment%20on%20ABS%20White%20Paper_FR_final.pdf

ABS%20White%20Paper_ES_final_08012010-RevisedContent_FINAL-ES.pdf

Appendix 1 - Documentation of Prior Actions

Appendix 2 - Announcement and Minutes of ICANN Board Resolution 27th August 2009

Glossary

Comments:

Comments will be accepted in any of the six UN languages.

The process is far too restrictive. Petition candidates with the support of at least one RALO or several ALSs should be considered.

--Wendy

contributed by guest@socialtext.net on 2010-01-11 19:14:08 GMT

Based on my limited knowledge on the process of Nomcom in which I served for last 2 terms,ABSC's proposed application/nomination procedure is a bit puzzling. In NomCom process, any one can either self-nominated or recommended by someone else (without any special requirement). In any case, she/he must submit the SoI to confirm the candidacy and shall be treated equally in the selection procedure. With respect to ABSC, there are two sources of candidates: self-applications and additional "petitions." In accordance with Recommendaton 3, "Petition candidates need to have gone through the ABSC process and may be added to the slate proposed by ABSC by a formal request of RALOs." It seems that the petitions do not carry much weight despite the high threshold. If so, could the process be simplified by modifying the petitions into applicants' references that could be submitted along with the SoI?
--Commented by Hong

contributed by guest@socialtext.net on 2010-01-12 10:21:36 GMT

The major difference between the proposed ABSC and the ICANN nomination committee I see is that the latter is composed in a very diverse way. The members of the nomcom represent various constituencies whereas the proposed ABSC seems will consist of ALAC insiders only. The ABSC solution makes it principally possible to control the course and outcome of the selection process. ICANN's nomcom structure does not due to its diverse composition. 
I don't understand why a petition candidate needs the support of a RALO. Is there any reason why ALSs cannot petition candidates? 
All in all, the proposed selection process looks rather like a cooptation procedure designed to control the outcome. The selection criteria look very restrictive and not very democratic to me. My bet is this selection process won't produce legitimate candidates.

--Jeanette Hofmann

contributed by guest@socialtext.net on 2010-01-15 18:52:48 GMT

Hong, there is only one source of candidates reviewed by the ABSC - those who submit a SoI, which as I understand it, is the same rule used by the ICANN NomCom. In the ICANN NomCom, even if a person is recommended by someone else or even by a NomCom member, that person still needs to submit a SoI.

The intent of the petition process was to cover the situation where a candidate was not in the short list created by the ABSC, but still had the support of a good number of good people in At-Large (as indicated by the support of 3 RALOs).

Such a petition candidate is then on the ballot - no questions asked. That sounds like a fair amount of weight to me!

contributed by alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca on 2010-01-15 23:44:14 GMT

—
Jeanette, I am a bit confused by "The members of the nomcom represent various constituencies whereas the proposed ABSC seems will consist of ALAC insiders only."

The ABSC is largely composed of ten members selected by the RALOs. How the RALO selects them is up to them, and if they wish, they could explicitly make sure that their ALAC members do not participate in the process (although to do so sounds a bit counter-productive to me). On the other hand, a RALO could select one of its ALAC members to be on the ABSC, but that would be their conscious choice if they did so.

Asking the RALOs to name the ABSC members is exactly analogous to ICANN's NomCom being named by the various ICANN constituencies and committees - in our case, the RALO and the ALSs that they are made up of ARE our "constituencies".

contributed by alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca on 2010-01-15 23:54:56 GMT

—
LACRALO agreed on our last teleconference with the whole process. We also made consensus about the first round, considering that there should be at least 1 candidate from each region participating in this first stage.https://st.icann.org/lacralo/index.cgi?transcription_21_january_2010_lacralo_en

contributed by investigaciones@densi.com.ar on 2010-01-27 12:29:23 GMT