[council] Proposed procedure and timeline for GNSO Elections for ICANN Board seat 13

["GNSO.SECRETARIAT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <gnso.secretariat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[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@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 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@xxxxxxxxx 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