2.2.5.2.2 The Election phase

The North American portion of the ICANN At-Large board election was contested between seven candidates and was decided by means of a preferential balloting process. It took six ballots to make Karl Auerbach, an engineer at Cisco Systems who was widely perceived as a "reformer" candidate, the winner over Barbara Simons (also viewed as a "reformer"). Auerbach had been one of the ICANN board's harshest critics and, as part of his platform, actively called for the resignation of ICANN president Mike Roberts and general counsel Louis Touton.

Auerbach and Simons were the last candidates standing from an original field of seven. Of these candidates, four-Lyman Chapin, Donald Langenberg, Lawrence Lessig, and Harris Miller-were nominated by the Board's Nominating Committee. The other three-Auerbach, Simons, and Emerson Tiller-were nominated by the North American At-Large Membership itself.

The North American race proved to be the At-Large election's most hotly contested race. Karl Auerbach emerged as the victor after five automatic runoffs. The election's most popular candidates-Auerbach, Lessig, Tiller, and Simons-were all self-described user advocates.

Turnout, however, was extremely low, even when compared to the already-reduced pool of eligible registered voters. North America's board representative was ultimately chosen by just 3,449 voters. North America is the most "wired" of any of the five regions represented in the ICANN election, yet the pool of actual voters in North America was far lower than either the European (11,309) or Asia-Australia-Pacific regions (17,745).

2.2.5.2.1.7 Press coverage

2.2.5.3 Conclusions and Observations