[To: council[at]gnso.icann.org] Dear Council Members, Pursuant to the ICANN bylaws http://www.icann.org/general/bylaws.htm#X-3.7 Section 3.7 The GNSO Council shall select the GNSO Chair, for a term the GNSO Council specifies but not longer than one year, by written ballot or by action at a meeting. Any such selection must have affirmative votes comprising a majority of the votes of all the members of the GNSO Council. A. CALL for NOMINATIONS Monday, 1 December 2008 to Monday 15 December 2008 at 23:00 UTC. A formal nomination period for the election of GNSO Council chair for the period 1 February 2008 until the newly structured GNSO Council is seated and a new chair is elected is now open for two weeks from Monday, 1 December to Monday 15 December 2008, ending at 23:00 UTC. All nominations should be accepted and seconded within the period 1-15 December 2008. Only GNSO Council members are eligible to make nominations and second nominations. Please send all nominations and seconds to: gnso.secretariat[at]gnso.icann.org Nominations and seconds will be acknowledged and posted to the council list. 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. In case of a tie, there will be a second round of voting. The rules governing the process are located at http://www.gnso.icann.org/council/names-proceduresv7.shtml , Section 13. 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