[Warning: What follows is mainly academic hair-splitting about ICANN
Bylaws, of little relevance to current elections or anything much
else. Recommended reading only if you enjoy such for its own sake.]

On Tue, Jun 02, 2020 at 12:27:48PM +0000, Amr Elsadr ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

> Elections during normal election cycles don’t qualify as filling
> “vacancies”, irrespective of how long the term may be (one or two
> years).

Reading the Bylaws, councillors' terms are always two years, selection
for a shorter period is possible only when filling a vacancy. And how
the SG selects (sic) its councillors is up to itself, including
changing the temporary councillor midterm. Note that the Bylaws talk
about selecting rather than electing, leaving the selection method to
SGs' own charters.

So as I see it, it's still Farzi's incomplete term that is being
filled here, we're just replacing the temporary replacement as per
NCSG's own rules. From the GNSO's point of view we are not and cannot
be selecting a new councillor for a new one-year term, even if we
so phrase it in our internal communication.

Rather we're just electing three councillors for regular 2-year
terms and have an internal rule that the first runner-up will
be swapped in as the vacancy-filler.

So whenever a councillor is selected mid-term to finish a term left
vacant by someone else, whether elected or appointed, whether the
first or the second or third to do so, they would be considered
"selected to fill a vacancy".

> I can tell you with some certainty that no Councilor has served
> three terms on Council as a result of being elected in 3 consecutive
> elections.

Maybe so. The debate I remember about this may have been or at least
become academic, moot, because the person in question didn't try to
actually do it.

> If there was any chance of this happening, I assure you, ICANN staff
> (possibly including their legal department) would have been all over
> us.

If someone was being selected for a full 3rd term, sure.

But that's not the issue at stake here, but whether an SG can
fill a vacancy with an election, and I see no reason why not.

I'd actually love to hear ICANN Legal comment on this...

-- 
Tapani Tarvainen