[council] Email voting rules for Names Council

[Bruce Tonkin <Bruce.Tonkin@melbourneit.com.au>]

Hello All,

Just a reminder of the current names council procedures around email voting.
>From Rules of Procedure for the DNSO Names Council:
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20020418.NCprocedures-v7.0.html

See below.

The procedure requires 14 days for a vote and needs to be validated at the
next Names Council meeting.  I will initiate a vote on this basis for the 4
resolutions currently ready for voting.  At the names council teleconference
on 3 October, we may decide to shorten this period if we believe the
circumstances to be exceptional (see 13.2 below) this should probably
require a 2/3 vote as a change to normal procedure.

Note under rules for setting agendas (see 4.4 of rules of procedure), it
would be normal to receive 14 days notice of a final resolution to be voted
on at a teleconference or physical meeting anyway.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin



13. E-mail voting
DNSO 13.1 The DNSO secretariat will typically act as returning officer for
an e-mail vote. All votes using the DNSO secretariat voting software have
resource implications. Any vote of the NC or General Assembly (GA)
undertaken by the DNSO secretariat must be requested by the Names Council
chair. 

The NC chair will not ordinarily refuse a request for a vote from the chair
of the GA for a GA vote, so long as the number of requests are for ten or
fewer votes per year. More than this number may have cost implication from
overtime or other costs above that expected in the annual DNSO secretariat
budget. If a request is refused, the GA chair is entitled to request NC
discussion for the next ordinary meeting of the NC; the GA chair shall
participate in such discussion. If the NC fails to honour such a request for
discussion, the GA's request for a vote shall be considered granted. 

13.2 The voting period for any vote will ordinarily be 14 calendar days. In
exceptional circumstances it may be shorter. A reminder will be sent out two
or three days before the end of the vote reminding the registered voters to
vote before the close of the vote. The returning officer should confirm
receipt of vote back to all voters. If a voter does not receive a receipt
within one working day then the onus is on the voter to contact the
returning officer and if necessary vote by telephone. Once the vote is
closed, the address to which the ballot is sent is no longer valid and an
out-of-time vote will be returned to sender. The result of the e-mail vote
will be declared as soon as practicable once known. 

Names Council e-mail votes 
13.3 ICANN by-laws VI-B 2(h) requires that NC members "can speak to and hear
one another" for an NC meeting to be valid. Votes taken by e-mail therefore
have to be validated at a subsequent meeting. 

13.4 Typically at the meeting of the Names Council following an e-mail vote,
the Chair will ask for the e-mail vote to be validated by a simple vote of
approval to show the will of the NC was fairly expressed by the e-mail vote.
After such validation the result of the e-mail vote will be an act of the
Names Council. 

13.5 Should there be any technical failure or other anomaly in the e-mail
vote, the Chair will ask NC members at the NC meeting following an e-mail
vote, to reaffirm their original or intended e-mail vote. NC members cannot
change their vote in a reaffirmation vote. 

13.6 Under exceptional circumstances which must be described by the Chair
and agreed to by the NC by a two-thirds vote, it may be decided to ignore
the e-mail vote and hold a fresh vote at which NC members may chose to vote
differently from their earlier e-mail vote.