Dear SCI members,

Glen de Saint Géry has helpfully provided to me information about how absentee ballots are conducted.  She notes that absentee ballots occur very rarely now since there is provision for proxy voting and temporary alternates. The ballots are always sent by email.  Glen notes that email ballots have worked well and there have been only two cases ever of people not responding, not voting and in both cases it made no difference to the results. 


Glen also noted that there was a time when there was an extra step whereby absent councilors were asked to send in a request for a ballot, but this step was removed as cumbersome because of the short time span 72 hours to vote (and even a shorter window if the chair so decided) and different time zones. So the absent Councillors are simply sent the absentee ballot directly after the meeting.


Glen added that the last time they used the absentee ballots was during the 31 October 2013 Council meeting for the Adoption of the Thick Whois Policy Development Process.  She has sent a sample ballot below.


Best regards,

Julie


Julie Hedlund, Policy Director

The absentee ballots look like this:

Dear [Name of Councilor],

 

Pursuant to the GNSO Council Operating Procedures section 4.4 Absentee Voting Procedures http://gnso.icann.org/council/gnso-op-procedures-07apr11-en.pdf absentee voting is allowed on the motion re: INSERT TITLE.

 

Your absentee ballot follows.  Please indicate your preference with an X and send the lines preceded with *asterisks directly to the GNSO Council Mailing list.

 

* On the motion I vote:

* [ ] Yes

* [ ] No

* [ ] Abstain

* Password: Green-5

 

This process should be completed within 72 hours of the meeting which ended at 13:05 UTC on [Date of Meeting].

(Completed ballots are due NLT 13:05 UTC, [Date])