Ross Rader has been running for re-election to the board of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority. Shortly before the nominations process closed, a big chunk of his support “evaporated.” Random Bytes…by Ross Rader :: CIRA Election Games - Part II

Earlier this week I noted that I was bamboozled by someone gaming the CIRA election process. My suspicions are that the technical aspects of the nomination process aren’t at fault – 2/3rds of my support really did disappear!

My theory is that a person or person controlling a large block of votes purposely inflated the amount of support for my nomination – which gave me a false indication of my status in the process – and then withdraw that false support minutes before the nomination process. This left me absolutely no time to solicit additional support for my nomination and shut me out of the process.

Ross reports CIRA is looking into the anomaly, and I hope they get to the bottom of it. He’s been a valuable contributor to the ICANN process and I’m sure he brings a lot to the CIRA board.

We worried about this kind of gaming when I worked with the early ICANN membership studies, but I hadn’t seen it happen before. Instead, ICANN has gone so far in the other direction as to eliminate individual representation entirely. CIRA’s prompt investigation can show that there’s a better balance of representation and accountability.