Dear all, As I've been accused of abruptly changing claimed long-established precedent in the treatment of NOTA, I looked at how it's been done in past NCSG elections since 2011. The only case where I found the impact of NOTA explicitly addressed by the Chair running the election was in 2011. Chair then was Avri Doria and she put it like this: "In the case of the g-council vote, the decision is to pick the top 4 people. So if 'none of the above' comes in in any of the top 4 places, I suggest that it just gets skipped and the top 4 vote getters become the g-council representative. It is just that those who got fewer votes than none of the above, will have a clue about how hard they will have to work in order to represent the membership." http://listserv.syr.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind1110&L=ncsg-discuss&D=0&P=115980 In 2012 the ballot, run by Robin, was organized differently: candidates were explicitly selected by region, with separate NOTA for each. No explanation seems to have been offered as to what NOTA means. (I can't now find the ballot in the web, only in my personal mail archive.) In 2013 ballot was again run by Robin, this time with similar style as today with a common pool of council candidates, but there was no NOTA option at all. http://listserv.syr.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A3=ind1310&L=NCSG-DISCUSS&E=base64&P=1735682&B=--Apple-Mail%3D_BE8CECBD-76B4-4895-954A-1A242E2FEF7E&T=application%2Fpdf;%20name=%22NCSG%20Election%20results%20October%202013.pdf%22&N=NCSG%20Election%20results%20October%202013.pdf&XSS=3 In 2014, run by Rafik, there was one common NOTA for all council candidates, but no mention of it in the instructions. http://listserv.syr.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind1409&L=ncsg-discuss&F=&S=&X=31BCBB9C87C143B93B&P=1055 In 2015, again by Rafik, similar to 2014, except this time NOTA was mentioned in his instructions - but without any explanation as to how it would be treated, only stating that 'In each list (Chair, GNSO councillors), you will also find the "none of the above" option.' http://listserv.syr.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind1509&L=ncsg-discuss&F=&S=&X=24E79EEDA4AE17FE9E&P=5880 Absent explicit instructions to the contrary I took "None of the Above" literally: that you don't want to vote any of the candidates listed above. So, out of five past elections, in one it was explicitly stated NOTA victory would not actually impact councillor election, in one case there was no NOTA option, one was different enough from current that it's not really useful as a precedent, and in the remaining two there was no explanation of what a NOTA vote or NOTA victory would mean. Given such variance in past practices I don't see the present one as a radical departure from any established process. I do accept the chastisement of not having established the process properly, however, and pledge to do so before the next election, if I remain the Chair. -- Tapani Tarvainen