Dear Members For your information, below are the relevant sections of the Charter regarding the election of an Executive Committee. A point of clarity regarding clause 5.1 in reference to 'members'. This is an exceptional membership year; the decision has been taken to delay invoicing for 2010 until the newly-elected Executive Committee has drawn up a budget and set fees. For the purpose of these elections, BC members as of 31 December 2009 are eligible to stand for election, to nominate and to vote. Best wishes Gary --------------------------------------------------------- 4.2. Executive Committee The Constituency will have an Executive Committee comprised as follows: a.. A Chair b.. A Vice Chair for policy coordination c.. A Vice Chair for finance and operations d.. A representative to the Commercial Stakeholder Group e.. Any Constituency members selected as Council members. 4.7 Terms and eligibility The terms of office of the Chair, Vice Chairs and CSG representative shall be one year. The terms of the GNSO council representative shall be as specified in the ICANN by-laws. To be eligible to stand for a position on the Executive Committee the candidate must have been a member of the Constituency for at least the immediately preceding 12 months. 5. Elections 5.1. The election process for the Executive Committee will be initiated by a nomination period of two weeks. The Chair, Vice Chairs and CSG representative will be elected at the same time. The timing of elections for GNSO representatives and Nominating Committee delegates will be determined by the ICANN by-laws. Any member of the Business Constituency may nominate one other member. This process (including receiving nominations, communicating nominations and publishing an overview of results) will be initiated and managed by the Secretariat. If at the close of nominations, it would result in all Executive Committee except Council representatives, or all Council representatives, being from the same region, the nomination period may be extended to improve geographic diversity. 5.2. Immediately following the nomination period, and a one week discussion period to talk with the candidates if time allows, the Secretariat will open an election period of one week, during which it will receive votes from members of the Constituency electronically, typically via e-mail. 5.3. Depending on category BC members have 3, 2 or 1 vote(s). Votes are cast as a block and are not divisible. The Secretariat will allocate votes cast according to category. 5.4. Proxy votes are allowed subject to written notification to the Secretariat by the designated representative of the member after the nomination period and before the start of the voting period and subject to the proxy conditions of article 3.6. 5.5. The winner(s) will be candidates receiving the largest number of votes. To ensure geographical diversity the Executive Committee may impose elimination rules based on ICANN geographical regions. Such rules will be made known before the start of voting. 5.6. In case of a tie a new election will be held among the nominees in the tie. 8. Communication Guidelines 8.2.3. Special rules for elections During elections there is a need for special rules in line with Article 5 of the Charter to ensure the integrity of the process and fairness to all candidates. This means inter alia that the returning officer for the election will unless otherwise agreed instruct the list administrator as follows: to open a nomination period but only publish nominations to the list at the close of that period; to open a discussion period (where the external timetable allows) but to monitor air time to ensure fairness to all candidates, and if necessary delete or suspend postings; to open a voting period and suspend all election and candidate related list mail during that period. 8.2.4 Types of list the BC will operate an open list with direct posting facility for BC members which is archived and available to members. This list is intended for dynamic discussions such as on policy. the BC will also operate an internal list for indirect posting via the BC Secretariat. This list is intended for administrative matters such as elections.