(observing)

I too was in this situation, for APC and as individual. I chose to vote
only as APC, though i did check in for both for the elections.

But I have understood those who said they had a vote they put in as a
rep, and a vote they put in as individual. I might have been able to
vote differently from APC at various times.  This has been discussed
periodically over the years and for the most part we have relied on the
EC power to redress anything that looks abusive.

I was happiest when someone else became the voter for APC. One possible
measure is to ask that the alternate reps fom an org be the voters in
such a case.  That way neither curtailing the voting rights of orgs or
individuals.

BTW  on a related themes.  I have decided, i think, that i should go
inactive as a voter for the duration of my term on the Board and thus at
this point have not checked in. APC probably did.

avri


On 22-Jul-18 09:46, Tapani Tarvainen wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> First full disclosure: I have been in this position in the past,
> voting both as individual member and as the representative of
> Electronic Frontier Finland (Effi). Not anymore though, after earlier
> controversy about it I asked Effi to appoint another official
> representative, so now I only have my individual vote in NCSG
> elections.
>
> That said, I now tend to agree that disallowing such double voting
> would be good for NCSG. But it is not quite as simple and obvious as
> it might seem at first.
>
> Besides the usefulness of adding such a rule, it is important that it
> would be done in proper order, following due process. In particular I
> think it would be inappropriate to change rules in the middle of
> ongoing election. So I think whatever is decided now should only apply
> to subsequent elections. And in implementing it we should follow our
> charter, and consider what kind of rules can and cannot be implemented
> without changing the charter.
>
> After all we're talking about disenfranchising or even removing
> members against their will, which is just about as serious as anything
> can be in an organization's rules.
>
> As a general observation: there's nothing unusual about one person
> having multiple votes or representing multiple interests in elections.
> In limited companies votes go by shares and a voter can represent
> multiple shareholders, or to pick a closer example, in GNSO council
> councillors can have a proxy vote in addition to their own. And of
> course in NCSG elections organizations already have more votes than
> individuals. Nor is it unheard of for someone to vote differently
> with different votes they're holding in the same election (indeed
> at least once I've voted differently with my individual vote than
> with Effi's vote in NCSG elections).
>
> There are, however, often limits on how many votes one person can
> have. In GNSO council a single councillor can only hold one proxy and
> thus at most two votes, for example. And some type of limited
> companies have restrictions too, like allowing one voter to hold at
> most certain percentage of votes. So I don't see any problem in
> principle for adopting such a rule for NCSG as well.
>
> I am not certain if it could be done without changing the charter,
> however. It might depend on how exactly it is done; depriving a member
> of their vote is a rather drastic thing to do, but perhaps making it a
> limitation on organizations' choice of their representatives would be
> easier.
>
> The more drastic option of disallowing one person even from being
> both individual member and organizational representative would
> also be possible, but considerably more complicated.
>
> One easy case is when handling new member applications, i.e., when
> either an organization in its application names a current member as
> its representative, or when an organization's representative applies
> for individual membership. In such situations NCSG EC can and should
> use its discretion to judge if it looks like just an attempt to get
> more votes - in particular if it looks like a de facto one-person
> organization, such an application could well be rejected. No new
> formal rules or charter changes would be needed, although EC could of
> course adopt internal guidelines for such situations.
>
> But when such a situation happens otherwise, when the two are already
> members, whether predating rule change or when an organization wants
> to change its representative to someone who's already an individual
> member, it becomes more difficult. It would either have to be written
> in member removal procedures that the individual membership would
> thereby be lost or as a restriction on who the organization can
> appoint as their representative. I'm not sure either could be done
> without changing the charter, nor do I think it'd be a good idea to
> begin with.
>
> As a practical observation, the "gaming of system" scenario would
> seem to be realistic just with such one-person organizations or
> cases where only one person in an organization is actually
> involved in NCSG - a large organization should have no trouble
> in selecting a representative who isn't an individual NCSG member.
>
> With that observation I conclude I can see no significant practical
> harm in prohibiting an individual from voting in two roles, and it
> would have definite advantages, so I'd be willing to support that.
> (I note though that formulating such a rule would take some care,
> but probably nothing really difficult.)
>
> I would not, however, want to disallow an individual member from
> even retaining their membership if they are an organization's
> representative at the same time. In particular I would not want to
> keep them from representing NCSG in working groups &c in their
> individual capacity.
>
> But whatever rule we choose to adopt, I would want it to be done
> right, following due process and taking care of compatibility with our
> charter, even changing it if need be. Asking ICANN legal team for an
> opinion about that might be a good idea.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Tapani Tarvainen
>
> On Jul 21 12:41, Collin Kurre ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
>
>> Hello Farzaneh,
>>
>> Thanks for raising this issue on the broader list. 
>>
>> As you imply, one could imagine a situation where an individual member holds views that differ from their organization’s positions or strategies. Perhaps the more fundamental question is whether one person can be both an organizational representative and and individual member. Deciding on this question would preempt the need to determine whether an organizational opinion should invalidate the representing individual’s.
>>
>> Full disclosure: I was one of the organizational reps who was contacted and opted to forfeit my individual vote in the interest of fairness until this matter is decided by the group.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Collin Kurre
>>
>> --
>> Collin Kurre
>> ARTICLE 19
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Jul 21, 2018, at 12:21 PM, farzaneh badii <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear all, 
>>>
>>> I have sent the message below to NCSG EC and I think we need to have a discussion about it and make an official decision on this issue. Please chime in:
>>>
>>> At the moment the organizational reps who are individual members of NCSG can participate in the elections as both organizational rep and individual members. Apparently, it has been discussed repeatedly in the past with no decision. Other than they said it is not against the charter.
>>>
>>> Not having remembered that it has been discussed but no decision made, I started contacting those who were listed as an individual member as well as organizational rep on the check-in list and asked them to choose whether they want to be individual members or represent their organization, since being both allowed them to vote twice which I think is not acceptable for the integrity of elections. Tapani corrected me and said the issue was discussed but never decided against https://lists.ncsg.is/pipermail/election-reform/2017-June/000021.html <https://lists.ncsg.is/pipermail/election-reform/2017-June/000021.html>
>>>
>>> I personally think it is unfair to allow organizational reps who are individual members to vote twice. This is because organizational reps (usually but not always) have autonomy from their organization to vote as they see appropriate and do not have a mandate as such. If they are also individual members, it provides them with the opportunity to vote twice and I think we need to fix it. 
>>>
>>> It might be too late to do this in this election but we need to discuss and make a decision. I have started explaining the rationale to those who are organizational reps as well as individual members and asked them to decide what they want to do for this election voluntarily until we make a decision. 
>>>
>>>
>>> Best
>>>
>>>
>>> Farzaneh