[ga] Proposal for chair election rules for the GA

[Harald Alvestrand <Harald@Alvestrand.no>]

Comments, please.
-----------------------------------------------

ELECTION RULES FOR THE DNSO GA
Version 0.1 - PROPOSED TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY ON MARCH 1, 2001

These are the rules for electing the chair and alternate chair of the 
General assembly.

OVERVIEW
--------
The process is an instance of Single Transferable Vote, the same procedure
as was used for the At-Large Election of ICANN.

The electors are the voting roster of the General Assembly:
http://www.dnso.org/secretariat/rosterindex.html

NOTE: Until the ICANN bylaws are changed, this procedure is an advisory
vote by the GA to advise the Names Council of its preferences.
This note shall be considered removed when the bylaws empower the GA
to elect its own chairs.

START OF ELECTION
-----------------
The election process starts when the Secretariat announces that nominations
are open.
At the same time, the voting roster is closed, and remains the same for the
remainder of the election process. (New members can always be added, but do
not get a vote for the election).

NOMINATION
----------
All nominations and endorsements are made public.

Nominees for the Chair and Alternate Chair are sent to an email address
provided by the Secretariat.
The nomination period shall be at least one week.

After the close of the nomination period, endorsements for the candidates
are sent to an email address provided by the Secretariat.
The endorsement period shall be at least one week.

Before the end of the endorsement period, candidates that wish to be
considered for the post must have sent in an acceptance of the nomination.

SELECTION OF THE SLATE
----------------------
All candidates who have accepted the nomination, and had at least two 
endorsements from members of the voting roster of the General Assembly, are 
considered candidates.
Note: Candidates are allowed to endorse themselves. Members can endorse
multiple candidates.

ELECTION
--------
Before the start of the election, the (outgoing) Chair selects at least 2
people who are not candidates to act as an election watchdog comittee. 
These receive copies of all ballots. The names of the watchdogs are public.

Voting is secret; only the secretariat and the watchdogs get to see the votes.

Each member of the General Assembly roster receives one ballot listing all
candidate names.
He/she then marks a preference, using "1" for the most favored candidate,
"2" for the second, and so on. There is no requirement to mark all names.

Ballots are sent to an address provided by the Secretariat.

The election period shall be at least one week.

SELECTION OF THE CHAIR
----------------------
The number of ballots for each candidate where he is ranked first is counted.
If one candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, he/she is the winner.

If not, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and the ballots
for that person are counted for the candidate who is ranked next on that 
ballot. If there is no ranked candidate left, the ballot is discarded.
If two or more candidates tie for fewest votes, the one listed first on the
ballot is discarded. (NOTE: this choice is essentially random. But flipping
a coin is a process that cannot be repeated by the watchdogs.)

The process is repeated until one candidate has more than 50% of the vote.

SELECTION OF THE ALTERNATE CHAIR
--------------------------------
The same process as for chair is used, but the candidate selected for chair
is eliminated before the counting starts.

(NOTE: This is likely to be a different candidate than the runner-up in the
selection procedure for chair, for instance when 90% of the electorate rank 
one person first and another second, while the remaining 10% vote for a 
third. Re-running the process is considered more likely to select a team 
that can work well together.)

--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, alvestrand@cisco.com
+47 41 44 29 94
Personal email: Harald@Alvestrand.no

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