4.2 Timeline of At-Large Activities

As stated above, ICANN needs act quickly in order to seat nine publicly-elected Directors next November. Past experience makes it clear that an At-Large election is a lengthy undertaking, and the Board should be prepared to pursue an aggressive timeline in order to fit in all the necessary activities, while avoiding the problems of the 2000 election. We therefore provide a model timeline for the Board and the ICANN community to consider; adherence to the targets laid out below will greatly facilitate ICANN's move towards an efficient, fair election.

November 2001 Public Meeting

Begin revisions to the ICANN bylaws. While the revisions enumerated above cannot be implemented overnight, ICANN needs to affirmatively commit itself to the concept of direct elections for the At-Large Membership and to begin the process of revising the bylaws. This may include passage of new bylaws at the November meeting; in any case it should lay the groundwork for bylaws changes at the following public meeting.
Issue call for nominations to 2002 Election and Nominating Committees. ICANN encountered significant criticism for its treatment of the Election and Nominating Committees' creation and conduct in the 2000 election. While in the long run, we expect the At-Large Membership Council to shoulder some responsibility for creating Election and Nominating Committees of its own, in 2002 that duty will fall to the ICANN Board. As much as possible, the Board should pursue and open, deliberative process for creating these Committees; in order for the process to be completed in a timely manner, the Board will need to solicit nominations to these Committees as early as the November 2001 public meeting.

December 2001-January 2002

Charter Election Committee. In the interim period between the November 2001 and February/March 2002 Public Meetings, the Board must maintain its momentum, particularly regarding the important rule-setting functions of the Election Committee. Since the Election Committee's decisions will require substantial deliberation, ICANN should charter it as soon as possible, using names submitted by members of the Internet community. In its charter, the Board should place several critical responsibilities before the Committee.
The Committee should be meaningfully independent from the Board, and should include experts from a diversity of backgrounds and ideological perspectives.
The Committee should operate in a non-partisan fashion.
The Committee should strive to propose election rules and codes of conduct that will bring about a fair, efficient election process in which fraud is minimized, vote-tallying is accurate, and five regional and four global At-Large Directors are elected without serious incident.
The Committee should provide technical recommendations to the Board regarding the installation of election servers, the contracting of election providers, and possible mechanisms for authentication.
After the election, the Committee should provide the Board with a report on the election's overall conduct, with non-binding recommendations for improvements for future elections.
Begin planning registration and election systems. In order to avoid the technical problems and surrounding controversy of the 2000 election, ICANN should begin designing, in consultation with the community, its solicitations for election providers, complete with design parameters and initial assumptions regarding the election. While certain aspects of the solicitation process, particularly regarding corporate bidding, will necessarily be closed, ICANN should make every effort to be transparent whenever possible. The Board should consider opening a public comment forum or publishing a draft Statement of Work as early as January 2002. Particular attention should be paid to ensuring that the system scales and that the distributed nature of the Internet is utilized.
Begin updates to members.icann.org. In order to provide users with accurate, regularly-updated information about the 2002 election, the Board should instruct staff to begin revamping the At-Large Membership's web site, members.icann.org, as early as possible. As with other functions of the Membership, operation of members.icann.org may eventually be transitioned to an institution of the At-Large itself (such as the Membership Council); in the meantime, the Board should consider maintenance of the space a necessary election expense. The Board and Staff should begin creating informational documents describing ICANN, the At-Large Membership, and At Large Directors, their roles and interrelationships, to ensure that all who consider joining ICANN understand what the purpose of the election, the membership and all other components is. These documents should be translated into all major languages (membership registrations from the 2000 election will provide a guide as to which languages should take priority.)
A registration template should be designed and made available for public comment and improvement. This template must be translated into all major languages.

February-March 2002 Public Meeting

Complete revisions to the ICANN bylaws. Consistent with its actions at the November 2001 Public Meeting, the Board should approve any remaining changes to the corporate bylaws no later than the February/March 2002 Public Meeting.
Charter Nominating Committee. ICANN should use the most open, transparent process possible for creating the Nominating Committee, in recognition of its important activities and of criticism received in 2000. Committee members should be selected in public from names submitted to the Board. The Committee's charter should include:
- The Committee should have a responsibility to transparency in its operations, and should elucidate its criteria and process as fully and as soon as possible.
- In order to avoid inconsistency in the election, the Committee should be restricted to naming a uniform number of candidates to the ballots of each region, with that number not to exceed two-thirds of the maximum ballot size.
- The committee-nominated slates should be selected with reference to diversities of gender, expertise, experience, residence, ideological perspective, and occupation, and with a view to how the candidate is representative of individual user interests.
Issue Call for Participation in Community-Oriented Outreach. ICANN should solicit participation from the community in an effort designed at educating Internet users about the At-Large, conducting press outreach, and fielding questions from the community about the 2002 election. This group should have input into the content appearing on members.icann.org and other forms of electronic outreach (possibly including mailings to the membership).
Status Report of the Election Committee.
Begin accepting At-Large Registrations and Member Activations. Shortly after the February-March 2002 public meeting, ICANN should be prepared to open servers to registration efforts by the public. These initial servers may or may not include experimental authentication systems like digital certificates or voluntary fee payment (recommendations from the Election Committee should be taken seriously in this regard) and should consider additional registration mechanisms that take into account how people in developing nations obtain Internet access. Shortly afterwards, one-time activation services should be available as well to those who have received PIN letters successfully.

April-May 2002

Continued Outreach/Education Activity by Community Outreach Group.
Regular Updates to members.icann.org.
Campaign Support Through Mailings to At-Large Members. ICANN should encourage interaction between newly-registered At-Large Members and candidates seeking either committee- or member-nomination by providing candidates with the means to contact members by e-mail. ICANN should be non-discriminatory in its support to candidates, but should at all times offer Members the opportunity to "opt-out" (or better, "opt-in") of such mailings or to receive such mailings in digest form.

June 2002 Public Meeting

Receive Initial Election Rules from Election Committee. ICANN should receive an Interim Report, including draft election rules, from the Election Committee at or prior to the June 2002 Public Meeting. As in 2000, those rules should be posted for comment by the public so that they may be revised by the Committee before the Board takes action.
Status Report from Community Outreach Group.
Issue Request-For-Proposals from Election Contractors. As soon as the Board has received the Election Committee's Interim Report, it should issue an RFP soliciting bids from election contractors capable of fulfilling the terms of that report in a timely and efficient faction. The RFP should be publicly posted.

July-August 2002

Nominating Committee Publishes Committee-Nominees. No later than July 15, the Nominating Committee should publish its list of Committee nominees. At that point, preparations should already be underway for beginning the member-nomination phase of the election.
Publish Final Election Rules. Also no later than July 15, the Election Committee should publish its set of recommendations for management of the 2002 election, including the member-nomination phase of operations.
Begin Member-Nomination Voting. The member-nomination period should, as in 2000, begin August 1 and last until September 1. It should be conducted in concordance with the final rules of the Election Committee. Member registration and activation services should be continued throughout this period and as close as possible to the start of voting.

September 2002 ICANN Meeting

Begin Campaign Phase. On September 1, the "campaign" phase of the election should begin. During this time, ICANN should redouble its efforts to support campaigns through access to the consenting members' e-mail addresses and web-based or digest-based information sources.

October 2002

Begin Voting Phase. As in 2000, voting should take place from October 1 to October 10.

November 2002

Nine At-Large Directors seated at conclusion of Annual Meeting.

4.1 Bylaws Changes

5. Conclusion