2.2.1.3.4 Comments on the Election process

The vast majority of the respondents felt that not many people understood the rules and the procedures governing the membership registration and election process. Some attributed this to the newness of ICANN itself, but also to the confusing nature of those rules and procedures.

Some comments:

"... I think that the whole process was problematic. Well designed in theory, but badly implemented. I couldn't even vote because the process would give back errors. ...E-mails in this regard were never answered."
"...The rules and the procedures are not straightforward, I even got confused sometimes... I think it should be more simplified and coordinated."
" ...While the principle was very good [but] needs to be improved, there needs to be more awareness raising about these new methods of online democracy."
" ...The rules and procedures were not that simple to understand, as it was all Web-based..."

Other respondents were more specific: in their view, people were required to learn about ICANN, its process, functions and the whole business of the concept behind the ALM and the election of the Directors in very short period of time. The language problem was also singled out as a problem area. A number of people were of the view that the rules and the procedures were not translated into other languages in a timely manner. This situation put the non-English speaking ALMs in Africa at a disadvantage. For example, in Africa there are four main language zones: English, French, Arabic and Portuguese. While the rules and the procedure were eventually translated into French and Arabic, they were never translated into Portuguese.

Overall, and with the exception of the technical problems, the election system was considered on balance to be appropriate. However, the use of Web-based voting did undoubtedly reduce or even eliminate the ability for individuals in a number of African countries to vote.

In the words of one respondent: "... the web-based voting was not at all suited for Africa. So, it is quite certain that some eligible voters have been excluded..."

It is commonly thought that an option for e-mail-based voting is needed, although there no answers have been put forward as to how this can be done with secure authentication, such as is offered through the Web.

Among respondents to the e-mail survey, awareness of the election result was good, with 57% of those knowing about ICANN aware of the result.

2.2.1.3.3 The Election

2.2.1.4 Conclusions and Assessment