[ALAC] ALS certification and decertification votes

[Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro]

Secret ballots on decertification are not transparent.
There should be utmost transparency involved in processes such as
decertification.

On Fri, Oct 3, 2014 at 1:37 AM, Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>
wrote:

> On our last ALAC call, Olivier brought up the subject of whether ALS
> certification and decertification votes should use secret ballots (such as
> we used for personnel votes) or not, and it was decided to discuss the
> issue on the mailing list.
>
> The history is that most ALAC votes are open and it is disclosed who voted
> which way, with the exception of personnel votes and others that the ALAC
> explicitly decides should be secret. We have made such a decision of rare
> occasions. The only example I can recall is when we voted on whether to
> file objections to the .health new TLDs and we did so to avoid any
> harassment of ALAC members who voted for such objections.
>
> A couple of years ago, a change was made to certification and
> decertification votes to change them from open to closed because of one or
> more objections filed by applicants. There is also a concern that a
> rejected application could lead to harassment of those who rejected it, and
> a concern that people might not vote honestly if the result was public
> (similar to the reason for secret ballots on personnel votes).
>
> I think that this concern should be considered.
>
> However, under our rules and the ICANN Bylaws, ALS certification and
> decertification decisions may be appealed to the Board. As such, we should
> be in a position to explain why a decision was made.
>
> Accordingly I offer the following proposal.
>
> ALS certification votes shall be conducted in such a way that there will
> be no public disclosure of how ALAC Members voted. However, the details of
> how ALAC Members voted will be available to ICANN At-Large staff and the
> ALAC Chair to allow them to conduct private interviews with voters to be
> able to put together a rationale for why any particular decision was made.
>
> Comments?
>
> Alan
>
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