[To: council[at]gnso.icann.org] Dear Council Members, Dear Councillors, A. Nominations for the position of GNSO Council chair for the period 1 February 2009 until the newly structured GNSO Council is seated and a new chair is elected closed on Monday, 15 December 2008, at 23:00 UTC. There is one candidate, Avri Doria, who has accepted her nomination by Tim Ruiz, a Registrar constituency representative, http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg05840.html seconded by, Stéphane van Gelder a Registrar constituency representative http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg05841.html Avri Doria accepted the nomination and provided a candidate statement. http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg05843.html B. PROPOSED SCHEDULE FOR THE VOTING Unless otherwise decided by the Council, the voting period will be open from Monday, 22 December 2008 at 15:00 UTC to Wednesday, 7 January 2009 at 15:00 UTC. C. VOTING PROCEDURE The voting will be by electronic ballot and the candidate receiving the majority of the votes will be elected as the chair. There will be a total of 27 votes cast. The winning candidate must receive at least 14 affirmative votes. D. GNSO COUNCIL MEMBERS ARE ELIGIBLE TO VOTE: All GNSO Council members are eligible to vote, that is, 3 representatives from each constituency, Registrars, gTLD registries, Commercial and Business Users (CBUC), Non Commercial Users (NCUC), Intellectual Property (IPC), and Internet Service Providers and Connectivity Providers (ISPCP) and the 3 Nominating Committee appointees. Liaisons from the ALAC and the GAC do not vote. E. VOTING Voting will take place by secret e-mail ballot. 1. Ballots will be sent out individually to each GNSO Council members' e-mail address. 2. The ballots will come from tally[at]icann.org, so please check your spam filter. 3. Ballots should be filled out and returned to the e-mail address stated in the ballot. They should not be copied to any e-mail list. 4. At the scheduled time, the Secretariat will announce the results of the vote by sending a message to the <council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> mailing list. This announcement will include: a. The number of votes received by each candidate; b. The names of the GNSO Council members from whom ballots were received; and c. The confidential code number of each ballot and the candidate for whom it was voted. Item 4(c) will allow each GNSO Council member to double-check that his or her ballot was properly understood, but will not allow others to determine how the member voted. 5. In exceptional cases where a GNSO Council member has no Internet access during the voting period, a voice vote may be registered with the GNSO Secretariat personally during the voting period, before the vote is closed. F. DISCLOSURE OF THE VOTING The Secretariat will announce the outcome of the voting at the close of the voting period. The GNSO Council will confirm the results of the voting at a scheduled Council meeting in January 2009. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you. Kind regards, Glen Glen de Saint Géry GNSO Secretariat - ICANN gnso.secretariat[at]gnso.icann.org http://gnso.icann.org