Folks,

I’ve now spent a little bit of time contemplating the situation we are in.

We issued a call for nominations for Vice-Chair. Our charter provides for 2-3 Vice Chairs. 6 qualified candidates volunteered. In the spirit of inclusion, I suggested all 6 become Vice-Chairs by acclamation. There is rough consensus for this position.

However, two issues give us pause:

1. Changing rules mid-stream. We had a duly constituted process through which we began executing elections. Changing the rules after the fact demonstrates the wrong approach towards governance – even though we are a very collegial group with a common, shared goal.

2. If everyone had known that all nominees would/could become Vice-Chairs, potentially *more* nominees would have volunteered. Changing the rules after the fact therefore potentially disenfranchises those folks.

As a result, I am asking Don Hollander to resume the election process for the 3 Vice Chair positions, and to refresh everyone’s memory by re-listing the slate of candidates. Some/most of the candidates will be attending the ICANN58 meeting in Copenhagen, which will allow folks to engage with them.

Don, please let the election run until after the close of the ICANN58 meeting, but let the voting commence in the next couple of days (once you are done traveling to Copenhagen).

We are a community driven and bottom-up initiative. I am so pleased that we have six excellent candidates who have come forward to serve the community and further our drive towards a world where all TLDs and emails will be universally accepted.

Regards,

Ram

Chair, Universal Acceptance Steering Group