[To: council[at]gnso.icann.org] Dear Council Members, The nominations for GNSO Council chair have closed. Philip Sheppard and Avri Doria have been nominated, seconded and accepted their nominations. The ballots go out today, Wednesday 16 May, and the voting period is open for 14 days, closing on Wednesday 30 May at 15:00 UTC. Please note that the ballots come from tally[at]icann.org and can be responded to via the web at the URL or via email by replying to the message in plain text. Please follow the instructions on the ballot to return the ballot as soon as possible. They should not be copied to any e-mail list. The candidate receiving the majority of the votes will be elected as the chair. There will be a total of 27 votes cast and a majority is 14 or more. In case of a tie, there will be a second round of voting. When the vote is completed, the Secretariat will announce the results on the Council mailing list. The 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. This 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. The GNSO Council will confirm the results of the voting at a Council meeting 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. Please let me know, off the Council list, if you encounter any problems or do not receive a ballot. Thank you Kind regards, Glen Glen de Saint Géry GNSO Secretariat - ICANN gnso.secretariat[at]gnso.icann.org http://gnso.icann.org