This document describes the IESG ballot procedures. Three cases are described. For the vast majority of documents, the Normal IESG Ballot Procedure is used, and neither of the other procedures comes into play.
When a document comes to the IESG Telechat Agenda more than once, the Single Discuss IESG Ballot Procedure may apply. Finally, the IESG chair may call for the Alternate IESG Ballot Procedure when the normal procedure is deadlocked. The alternate procedure requires a significant time commitment from all ADs, so it is not invoked lightly.
The ballot options for all normal IESG evaluations are:
It is normal good practice for an AD to enter a Comment that explains the reason for their Abstain position.
For a BCP or Standards-Track document, approval requires one Yes with at least 2/3 of all non-recused ADs voting Yes or No Objection, and no Discuss votes. (In cases where 2/3 of all non-recused ADs is not a whole number, the number will be rounded up.) The IESG secretary will refer to the ballot during the telechat, and poll any AD who has not posted a ballot position. This consumes a lot of time, so posting ballot positions prior to the telechat is much better. This also allows circulation of important comments and "Discuss" text in advance, hopefully leaving ADs with more time for the thorny issues or, on sadly rare occasions, the ability to end the telechat early. If a Discuss can be cleared by email prior to the telechat, everybody wins. During the telechat, the Secretary will tally the ballot positions and announce the result.
For an Informational, Experimental, or Historic document, approval requires one Yes with no Discuss votes. The IESG secretary will refer to the ballot during the telechat, but there will not be a poll of ADs who have not posted a ballot position. If there are no Discuss ballot positions, the Secretariat will ask, "Does any AD object to this document being published?" If an AD raises an objection, a Discuss position must be posted at that time.
This procedure is a follow-on procedure to the normal procedure, and it used to resolve a single Discuss ballot position that is blocking document advancement.
If a sponsoring AD places the document on the agenda for a second IESG telechat, there is only one Discuss ballot position, no other ADs have expressed support for that Discuss ballot position, and the document
otherwise has sufficient Yes or No Objection ballot positions for approval, then the document is simply approved, essentially overriding the single Discuss holding AD.
The override can be prevented by any other AD expressing support for the posted Discuss position. Support for the Discuss position can be noted by entering ballot position other than Yes with accompanying comment text that says, "I support the Discuss position held by <name-of-discuss-holding-AD>."
The alternate procedure is invoked by the IESG chair in the event that the IESG deadlocks using the above procedures. The IESG chair tells the ADs that the alternate procedure will be used for a particular document, and then:
Approval requires 2/3 of all non-recused ADs to vote Yes and not more than two ADs may vote No. If the document is not approved, then it is sent back to the WG (or the author for an individual contribution). The WG must perform a substantial review of their charter. This review may have many different results, which include changing the intended status of work on a particular topic (such as experimental instead of standards track), dropping one or more topics from the charter, and closing the entire WG.
[Approved by the IESG on 21 May 2009 and updated 14 August 2014.]