[ALAC] Explanation of RoP Director voting alternatives
Kan Kaili
kankaili at gmail.com
Fri Jun 17 10:14:00 UTC 2016
Hi, Seun,
I fully agree with you that this random process only takes place "in case" and most likely may not take into effect.
However, I am talking about the principle. I have not seen any single nation including such kind of randomness in its election process. Thus, as selecting our Board Member is a serious matter, whe should we do it that way ?
Here I would like to reiterate the following from my previous email: "... including this random factor into the selection process implies that we at ALAC rather trust randomness instead of our own elected ALT. This also implies that we regard personal fairness to be more important than the effectiveness of selecting our Board Member. Is this what we want?"
As to contestants may be in the ALT making such a decision, I would say, so be it. I do not see the reason of being "unfair" for a person to vote for him/herself. Thus, the whole ALT votes to make the selection in such a case.
The only reason I can see for randomness is that, nobody will be blamed for a result (ANY result, no matter good or bad) but not being liked by some people. This reason itself showes that the decision-making parties are not taking their responsibilities seriously enough.
Of course, in order to decrease the pressure of ALT members, the ALT selection process can be of secret ballots if so desired. If the current situation is serious enough, I would agree to see my ALT selection suggestion amended this way.
If the ALT making this decision is un-practical in our current situation, in my other email I have also provided a few other alternatives for your consideration. However, as proven by the Arrow's theorem, democracy (and fairness) has its limits, while what must be done must be done.
BTW, now I tend to believe I under-estimated this so-called "long and painful" process before jumping into it. Maybe next time I should be more careful. :)
Thank you again.
Best regards,
Kaili
----- Original Message -----
From: Seun Ojedeji
To: Kaili Kan
Cc: Alan Greenberg ; Holly Raiche ; ALAC Working List ; León Felipe Sánchez Ambía
Sent: Friday, June 17, 2016 4:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ALAC] Explanation of RoP Director voting alternatives
Hello Kaili,
I think we need to be clear here, going the random option is last resort and we all may actually never experience it. Three steps would have happened before randomly doing stuff:
1. There would have been a contested position
2. Votes would have been casted and resulted to a tie
3. Another set of votes would have been casted among the contestants in 2 above.
Once the above still result to a tie, I think it is just fair to go to randomisation that is verifiable. At that point there would be no human subjectivity as it is assumed that both tied contestants are qualified to be elected. Seeding that role to ALT brings in unnecessary human perspective/interference which won't be necessary at that point.
Secondly, the ALT members are part of the electorates and there may even be instances where one of them is a contestant so delegating a section of the electorate the responsibility to determine the elected would not be a fair election process.
Regards
Sent from my LG G4
Kindly excuse brevity and typos
On 17 Jun 2016 8:50 a.m., "Kan Kaili" <kankaili at gmail.com> wrote:
Hi, Leon,
I agree with you that a random selection process is the best in accordance to "fairness".
However, including this random factor into the selection process implies that we at ALAC rather trust randomness instead of our own elected ALT. This also implies that we regard personal fairness to be more important than the effectiveness of selecting our Board Member. Are those what we really want?
As I understand, the Board Member is to represent ALAC, all the RALOs and ALSs, and in turn all the end-users to the Board. This is a serious position with enormous responsibility. I am not sure about what the end-users will think, but at least I will not feel comfortable having a randomly selected person to represent me. Furthermore, I am not sure if such a selectee would feel confident and be effective at that position either.
Sorry to disagree with you on some points.
Best regards,
Kaili
----- Original Message -----
From: León Felipe Sánchez Ambía
To: Holly Raiche
Cc: ALAC Working List ; Alan Greenberg
Sent: Friday, June 17, 2016 12:03 PM
Subject: Re: [ALAC] Explanation of RoP Director voting alternatives
Hello all,
My sense is that option 2 is the best in fairness. While I understand the complexities of the rest of the options, I believe letting those candidates tied for last place compete amongst them is the most transparent way to address the challenge. In case they are tied again, then it would be justified to run the verifiable random disqualification process.
Best regards,
León
El 16/06/2016, a las 5:18 p.m., Holly Raiche <h.raiche at internode.on.net> escribió:
I have to agree with Alan (and Kaili) here.
I don’t think Kaili was suggesting that the ALT take over anything. However, they may be situations where, for timing reasons, the ALT may be an appropriate mechanism to reach a decision.
In the longer term, yes, we do need rules to deal with situations that have been described, and they must be as open and democratic and fair as possible. But we must also reserve the means of solving disputes in ways that do not absorb too much time and energy of ALAC members. I”m sure there will be a solution, hopefully without absorbing too much more time and effort of all of us
Holly
On 17 Jun 2016, at 1:48 am, Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca> wrote:
To be clear, Tijani is correct that the ALT does not, de facto, have any rights to take decisions on behalf of the ALAC other than those rights of the Chair which the Chair might actively delegate to the ALT.
However, the ALAC may, if it chooses, from time to time, delegate actions of the ALAC to the ALT. It happens relatively rarely, but does on occasion occur, usually for reasons of tight timing requirements.
Alan
At 16/06/2016 11:33 AM, Tijani BEN JEMAA wrote:
Dear Kaili,
I’m sorry to disagree with you on everything:
a.. The electorate is not constituted by the ALAC members only, but also the RALO leaders, so the ALAC can’t delegate to ALT what is not its sole duty
b.. even if we suppose that the ALT is elected democratically by the ALAC members, this doesn’t mean that the ALT can be delegated to replace the ALAC. This is exactly the argument given by the authoritarian regimes arguing that since they were elected by their people, they have all the rights to do everything on their behalf because they know better then the people where is their interest. When you are democratically elected, it is a mandate for a limited time to do certain things; it is not an open mandate to replace who elected you outside the mandate you are elected for.
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Tijani BEN JEMAA
Executive Director
Mediterranean Federation of Internet Associations (FMAI)
Phone: +216 98 330 114
+216 52 385 114
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Le 16 juin 2016 à 15:46, Kan Kaili <kankaili at gmail.com> a écrit :
Hi, Tijani,
The awswer to your question: Basically, yes. That is, when ALAC faces a tie during the selection of its Board Director, or other positions generally in principle, the ALT will be delegated to make the selection on behalf of ALAC.
The justification of this includes:
- When there is a tie, all the tied candidates are equal representations of ALAC.
- The ALT is democratically elected with full representation of all regions, cultures and, presumably, various interests.
- ALT members are elected due to their experience and contribution to ICANN's mission, who should also be most capable to make the best selection among candidates.
- As the ALT will be making the selection on behalf of all of ALAC, the process should be open to all ALAC voting members (not beyond). Thus, the selection made by each ALT member in this process will affect the support he/she receives during later elections of the ALT. This will in turn put a "lid" on any possible blackbox deals which will be the safeguard for our democratic principle.
- We at ALAC are merely representatives of ALSes, or of the end-users in the world (maybe to a lesser extent regarding NomCom selectees like me). Thus, as they elected and delegated us to make selections on their behalf, it would also make sense to extend the same principle to the ALT in the case we cannot effectively make a selection.
Furthermore, as Alan pointed out, it is possible, even likely, that tied-candidates be ALT members themselves, and even the chairperson him/herself. So be it. I don't think anywhere in the world's elections prohibit a person to vote for him/herself. Based on the above same arguments, he/she has received enough support for the position during the "general" election process, and is thus well deserved. Thus, he/she moving to the Board will vacate the ALT position, maybe even the chairperson position, for new blood. Also, as he/she gets the position as desired, I am sure that he/she will work even harder to contribute to ICANN's mission.
Of course, before ALT selects on behalf of the whole ALAC, how many rounds of tie-breaking need to take place is up to debate. As I am not familiar to the current process, I am sure that, with so much wisdom in ALAC, a process to bridge the gap between the current process and the future one could be designed. However, again as Arrow's Nobel-prized Theorem has proven, especially as the Board Member selection process has been a "long and painful" one so far, a certain degree of "dictatorship" ("democracy-based dictatorship" to be exact) has to be there as a last resort.
Thank you, and thank you all.
Best regards,
Kaili
----- Original Message -----
From: Tijani BEN JEMAA
To: Kan Kaili
Cc: Seun Ojedeji ; Alan Greenberg ; ALAC Working List
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2016 8:58 PM
Subject: Re: [ALAC] Explanation of RoP Director voting alternatives
Dear Kaili,
Do you propose that in the selection of the Board Director selected by At-Large, when we face a tie, we delegate the ALT to decide which one should be dropped????
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tijani BEN JEMAA
Executive Director
Mediterranean Federation of Internet Associations (FMAI)
Phone: +216 98 330 114
+216 52 385 114
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Le 16 juin 2016 à 12:00, Kan Kaili <kankaili at gmail.com> a écrit :
Hi,
I have followed this discussion with interest but also confussion. It seems to me that different options have different pros, cons and possible outcomes.
As a matter of fact, this reminds me of Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, basically saying that democracy can only go so far, and may not necessarily lead to a fair outcome acceptable by everybody. In that case, some degree of "dictatorship" is warranted. This is why republics are established, as well as why the presidential race between Bush and Gore was finally decided by the Supreme Court.
Thus, in our case, when a tie has appeared, I suggest to delegate ALT to decide who will represent ALAC at the position. After all, the ALT is elected by all of us thru a fully democratic process. Good enough. In the case that even the ALT cannot decide, the chairperson of ALAC will make the final decision.
I believe this process is highly executable, and is also fully democratic to its limit.
Being the most junior member of ALAC, just expressing some of my thoughts for your consideration.
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