Re: [members-meeting] Re: [icann-eu] Summary

[Harald Alvestrand <Harald@Alvestrand.no>]

At 15:24 05/12/2000 -0800, Karl Auerbach wrote:

> > ... I would be open to such a model if someone were able to show
> > convincingly that the results of indirect elections are more 
> representative, fair
> > and democratic than direct elections.
>
>Don't forget that when one goes to indirect elections one foresakes the
>ability to take advantage of the laws of California (and many, many other
>jurisdictions) that give valuable and useful rights to the electors either
>with regard to election processes, inter-elector communications, access to
>corporate information, and rights to vote on various kinds of corporate
>actions.
>
>It is these latter items that have induced the fierce opposition to direct
>elections by those who want ICANN to remain closed system with no public
>accountability.

I think these benefits accrue to "members" in the California legislative 
sense, not to the particular form of the election process.

it might be a Good Thing to go after these rights explicitly, if we decide 
that we want them, rather than assume that we can "inherit" them if we can 
get rid of the "a member is not a member" clause of the bylaws.

In particular, I can see the idea that there needs to be a communication to 
a couple of hundred thousand members whenever something of relatively high 
importance should be decided would make the accountants blush, to say the 
least. So the details of what kinds of corporate actions would require 
consultations can be interesting.

[members-meeting deleted as usual because it disallows crossposting]


>To my mind, these ancillary benefits are so incredibly valuable that the
>possibility of indirect elections should not even be considered.
>
>                 --karl--

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