Jim Some answers below… From: UA-discuss <ua-discuss-bounces@icann.org> On Behalf Of Jim DeLaHunt Sent: Saturday, 19 January 2019 10:42 AM To: ua-discuss@icann.org Subject: Re: [UA-discuss] UASG Elections Hello, Don and colleagues: On 2019-01-18 07:02, Don Hollander wrote: Dear all: The Election for the UASG Chair and Vice-Chair positions is coming up. Excellent! Please find links to the schedule for elections and the Position Descriptions for Chair and Vice-Chairs available at https://uasg.tech/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/07-Election-Proposed-Process-An... https://uasg.tech/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/07-Position-Description-Chair-U... https://uasg.tech/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/07-Position-Description-Vice-Ch... Key dates: February 20, 2019 – Call for nominations will go out. March 3, 2019 – Voting Opens All deadlines will be 23:59 UTC The voting is scheduled to end during the ICANN meeting in Kobe. Don Reading these documents raises a number of questions for me about the election process, and I have some proposed answers. Q: by what authority are we electing these officers, instead of having some body appoint them? The charter doesn't explain this. It says, "one Chair and two to three Vice-Chairs who will be appointed to two-year terms". It says "appointed", not "elected". The charter wording uses the passive voice, so it doesn't say who or what does the appointing. I think one can argue that an election doesn't violate the charter, since it's a way to appoint someone. But if these are really elected roles, perhaps the charter should be clarified to say that. Q: who gets to vote in these elections? Subscribers to the UA-Discuss list. Q: are any of the present office-holders permitted to be re-elected? The charter says that they may serve at most two terms. Have any of the present office-holders reached that limit? Ram Mohan is term limited as Chair. He could stand as vice-chair Rich Merdinger and Edmon Chung are term limited as Vice-Chairs. Either of them could stand as Chair Mark Svancarek could stand as Chair, Vice-Chair or not at all. Q: the charter says "two or three" Vice-Chairs. How many will we be electing? If there are more than two candidates, we’ll elect three. Q: what is the electoral process used for this election? There are several different processes used for such elections. I suggest that best practice for a single-winner election (e.g. for Chair) is preferential ballot, counted with Alternative Vote (aka Instant Runoff Voting) method. Some people prefer Condorcet Method for single-winner elections. I suggest that best practice for a multiple-winner election (e.g. for two or three Vice-Chairs) is preferential ballot, counted with Single Transferable Vote method (of which there are varieties, with minor differences). Last time we used a single non-transferrable vote for the Chair and three non-transferrable, non-ranked votes for the Vice Chairs. Q: can a single person run for both Chair and Vice-Chair? How does that work? I can imagine, for example, that it might be desirable for a person who fails to get elected as Chair be a candidate for Vice-Chair. Yes, a single person could run for both position. Q: what method will we be using to vote? How are ballots distributed and counted? The answer affects practical elections logistics. It also affects which variety of Single Transferable Vote counting works best. I suggest that the elections officers consider using OpaVote <https://www.opavote.com/>. It lets you distribute links to voters by email, and have voters cast votes on a web page, and then counts the votes, and produces a clear report listing the results and winners. Another group I am part of used OpaVote with great success. Last time we used SurveyMonkey. I’ve looked at opavote and happy with that. The email addresses of subscribers were harvested and each address received an invitation to participate in the vote. Q: who is running the election? who counts the votes? I ran the election and the numbers were verified by someone not involved in the UASG at all. There was a tie and that person and I tossed the coin. I propose that the Chair election be by preferential ballot, counted with Alternative Vote method. I propose that the Vice-Chair election be by preferential ballot, counted with Single Transferable Vote method, with details chosen according to the technology chosen for administering the election. If OpaVote, then use Meek STV rules (or Scottish STV). I propose that the election be administered using OpaVote, unless some other technology is already available which is just as good as OpaVote. I propose that candidates for Chair be permitted to run for Vice-Chair as a fallback. The election for Chair is held first, and the winner of that election is eliminated as a candidate for Vice-Chair before counting the Vice-Chair votes. I am willing to be part of an elections administration team. Given that I ask all these questions and make all these proposals, it seems only fair that I offer my efforts also. And I have no interest in running for these positions. Thank you for the offer. I’ll engage off the list. Don Best regards, —Jim DeLaHunt, Vancouver, Canada -- --Jim DeLaHunt, jdlh@jdlh.com<mailto:jdlh@jdlh.com> http://blog.jdlh.com/ (http://jdlh.com/) multilingual websites consultant 355-1027 Davie St, Vancouver BC V6E 4L2, Canada Canada mobile +1-604-376-8953