[Chapter-delegates] Internet Society Appointments to theNTIA/IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group

[Evan Leibovitch]

On 4 July 2014 07:12, Vint Cerf <vint at google.com> wrote:


> the idea that there should be a global election for board members of ICANN
> by citizens of the world and users of the Internet was then and I think
> still is unworkable. Qualifying the electorate and running a verifiable
> election (ie, free of fraud) via the Internet is still out of the question.
> In places like Estonia where strong authentication is available it appears
> possible to achieve such an objective but this isn't feasible today on a
> global scale. I think the At-Large mechanism is about the best one can do
> along these lines for now.
>


That might be workable, except that most of the advocates for this stance
have become exhausted begging for it.

After the last ALAC review, The Board Governance Committee recommended that
the At-Large Community be able to elect two seats to the ICANN Board. In
the end, we got one and I was privately told by some Board members that we
should consider ourselves lucky to get that.

During the second At-Large Summit held during ICANN50, there were calls to
renew a push for that second Board seat chosen by At-Large. I believe this
is indicates within the Summit's final declaration that was presented to
Fadi and Stave. But without another Board-initiated review to propose this,
how does it happen? When At-Large asks for it we come across to some as
"just another self-serving ICANN community wanting more power". Yet more
influence for At-Large, as a path to increased accountability appears NEVER
to be advanced outside of ALAC itself.

The push for this can get very disheartening. At times it seems that the
success or failure of greater At-Large influence hinges on unfortunate
criteria, such as the performance of the sitting At-Large rep on the Board
or the perceived value of ALAC/Board meetings. I have even been told that
my personal scepticism about the public benefit of the gTLD expansion, in
small part, has been one of many unspoken impediments to At-Large's being
perceived as worthy of another Board seat.

Those of us working in At-Large to try to act, as some including Fadi have
said, as "ICANN's conscience", have become exhausted at merely trying to be
seen as worthy enough. One of the sub-committees of the ATLAS2 organizing
group was called "Return on Investment". I find it repugnant that, so many
years after it was formed, even inside At-Large we still feel the need to
prove RoI. It wasn't that long ago that even consistent travel support had
to be begged for,

In summary, Vint, I would agree with you that more and better use of
At-Large may be capable of at least trying to address the lack of
free-for-all public elections. But I really wish that there was more
support for this option outside of the ALAC itself. We don't have to go far
within ICANN meetings to find many Board members, senior staff and indeed
Fadi himself telling us At-Largers how vital we are. The will to add more
At-Large elected Board members (perhaps to replace the NomCom appointments
rather than just making a bigger Board) would be the best way to put action
behind that sentiment.

- Evan
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