[To: council[at]gnso.icann.org] Dear Council Members, Please find below a proposed election procedure and timeline for the GNSO Elections for ICANN Board seat 13. Call for nominations by members of the GNSO Council: 3 weeks for Nominations: Opens on Monday 19 February 2007 closes on Monday 12 March 2007 Two weeks to verify and interview candidates Monday 12 March 2007 to Sunday 25 March 2007 Start voting - first round Monday 2 April 2007 - Monday 9 April 2007 Start voting - second round Monday 9 April 2007 - Monday 16 April Start voting - third round Monday 16 April 2007 - Monday 23 April Announce results 24 April, or before if the voting is successfully completed. Proposed dates for GNSO Council meeting to confirm results: Thursday 26 April OR Thursday 3 May in time for the GNSO to give due notice of its selection no later than five months after the Annual Meeting 2006, which would be 8 May 2007. In accordance with the ICANN Bylaws From Article VI, http://www.icann.org/general/bylaws.htm#VI 3. In carrying out their responsibilities to fill Seats 9 through 14, the Supporting Organizations shall seek to ensure that the ICANN Board is composed of members that in the aggregate display diversity in geography, culture, skills, experience, and perspective, by applying the criteria set forth in Section 3 of this Article. At any given time, no two Directors selected by a Supporting Organization shall be citizens of the same country or of countries located in the same Geographic Region. [Note the other ICANN Board seat holder elected by the GNSO is Rita Rodin Templates will be available for Nomination and Seconding of candidates All nominations must be seconded by another GNSO Council member. Each nomination must be accompanied by a brief description of how the candidate meets the following selection criteria http://www.icann.org/general/archive-bylaws/bylaws-28feb06.htm Section 3. CRITERIA FOR SELECTION OF DIRECTORS ICANN Directors shall be: Accomplished persons of integrity, objectivity, and intelligence, with reputations for sound judgment and open minds, and a demonstrated capacity for thoughtful group decision-making; Persons with an understanding of ICANN's mission and the potential impact of ICANN decisions on the global Internet community, and committed to the success of ICANN; Persons who will produce the broadest cultural and geographic diversity on the Board consistent with meeting the other criteria set forth in this Section; Persons who, in the aggregate, have personal familiarity with the operation of gTLD registries and registrars; with ccTLD registries; with IP address registries; with Internet technical standards and protocols; with policy-development procedures, legal traditions, and the public interest; and with the broad range of business, individual, academic, and non-commercial users of the Internet; Persons who are willing to serve as volunteers, without compensation other than the reimbursement of certain expenses; and Persons who are able to work and communicate in written and spoken English. Section 4. ADDITIONAL QUALIFICATIONS 1. Notwithstanding anything herein to the contrary, no official of a national government or a multinational entity established by treaty or other agreement between national governments may serve as a Director. As used herein, the term "official" means a person (i) who holds an elective governmental office or (ii) who is employed by such government or multinational entity and whose primary function with such government or entity is to develop or influence governmental or public policies. 2. No person who serves in any capacity (including as a liaison) on any Supporting Organization Council shall simultaneously serve as a Director or liaison to the Board. If such a person accepts a nomination to be considered for selection by the Supporting Organization Council to be a Director, the person shall not, following such nomination, participate in any discussion of, or vote by, the Supporting Organization Council relating to the selection of Directors by the Council, until the Council has selected the full complement of Directors it is responsible for selecting. In the event that a person serving in any capacity on a Supporting Organization Council accepts a nomination to be considered for selection as a Director, the constituency group or other group or entity that selected the person may select a replacement for purposes of the Council's selection process. 3. Persons serving in any capacity on the Nominating Committee shall be ineligible for selection to positions on the Board as provided by Article VII, Section 8. Section 5. INTERNATIONAL REPRESENTATION In order to ensure broad international representation on the Board, the selection of Directors by the Nominating Committee and each Supporting Organization shall comply with all applicable diversity provisions of these Bylaws or of any Memorandum of Understanding referred to in these Bylaws concerning the Supporting Organization. One intent of these diversity provisions is to ensure that at all times each Geographic Region shall have at least one Director, and at all times no region shall have more than five Directors on the Board (not including the President). As used in these Bylaws, each of the following is considered to be a "Geographic Region": Europe; Asia/Australia/Pacific; Latin America/Caribbean islands; Africa; and North America. The specific countries included in each Geographic Region shall be determined by the Board, and this Section shall be reviewed by the Board from time to time (but at least every three years) to determine whether any change is appropriate, taking account of the evolution of the Internet. Only GNSO Council members may nominate and vote for candidates, although GNSO Council members should consult with their constituencies with regard to suitable candidates Accepting Nominations: The GNSO Secretariat will confirm the nomination, by sending an e-mail to the candidate requesting their acceptance. The GNSO Secretariat shall convey the nomination and the acceptance thereof to the GNSO Council list. B. VOTING PROCEDURE The voting will be "convention style" voting. This consists of sequential rounds of voting until a single candidate receives a majority of the votes on the GNSO Council. (see: Appendix A Convention Style Voting http://gnso.icann.org/elections/election-procedures-01jun06.htm) (There will be a total of 27 votes cast and a majority is 14 or more.) C. PROPOSED SCHEDULE FOR THE ROUNDS OF CONVENTION STYLE VOTING Start voting - first round Monday 2 April 2007 - Monday 9 April 2007 Start voting - second round Monday 9 April 2007 - Monday 16 April Start voting - third round Monday 16 April 2007 - Monday 23 April D. GNSO COUNCIL MEMBERS 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. GNSO Council members who are candidates, will be replaced temporarily on the Council by a member chosen by the constituency affected and that person will have the right to vote. E. COUNTING OF VOTES: As provided in the ICANN bylaws, http://www.icann.org/general/archive-bylaws/bylaws-28feb06.htm, Article X, section 5.2. each GNSO Council member representing either the registrars constituency or the gTLD registries constituency will be entitled to cast two votes in each round, and all other members (including those selected by the Nominating Committee) shall be entitled to cast one vote. There will be a total of 27 votes cast and a majority is 14 or more. F. 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. 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. 3. At the scheduled times, the Secretariat will announce the results of each round of balloting by sending a message to the <council@gnso.icann.org> mailing list. These announcements 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 3(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. 4. 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. G. 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 Council meeting. Once that occurs, the GNSO Secretariat will prepare and post a full record of all voting, including how each member voted in each round. H. DISCUSSION MAILING LIST DURING ELECTIONS 1. In accordance with a decision as noted in: http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20030325.GNSOrio-captioning.html http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20030325.GNSOrio-minutes.html Public archiving of the GNSO Council list will not be stopped. A separate archive and mailing list will be created for the purpose of managing elections going forward. This list will (a) exclude those Council members who are candidates; but include (b) any liaisons from the ALAC or GAC to the GNSO Council; and (c) the GNSO Secretariat. The list recipients and archiving will be concluded at the end of the process. This list name is elections-gnso@icann.org and archives will be posted at http://forum.icann.org/lists/elections-gnso/ following the conclusion of the election. 2. Messages posted to the list should be treated as confidential until the end of the elections. The GNSO Secretariat may, however, disclose them to the General Counsel's office to the extent appropriate to obtain advice about how to handle procedural problems that arise during the voting process. The Council list should continue to be used for normal policy development work. Please note that the General Counsel and Deputy General Counsel will not be recipients of the special election mailing list during this period, so they should be copied on any particular message that you wish to bring to their attention. -- Glen de Saint Géry GNSO Secretariat - ICANN gnso.secretariat[at]gnso.icann.org http://gnso.icann.org