.voto
| Status: | Delegated |
| Registry Provider: | Afilias |
| Registry: | Monolith Registry LLC |
| Registry Backend: | Afilias |
| Type: | Generic |
| Category: | Lifestyle |
| Priority #: | 976 - Monolith Registry LLC |
| nTLDStats | |
| Registrations: | 391 |
| Parked Domains: | 227 |
| Parked Domain %: | 58.06 % |
| Important Dates | |
| Delegation: | 02 March 2014 |
| General Availability: | 17 February 2015 |
More Information: 
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.voto is a proposed TLD in ICANN's New gTLD Program. The applicant is Monolith Registry LLC.[1] The proposed application succeeded and was delegated to the Root Zone on 2 March 2014.[2]
Application Details
The following is excerpted from the applicant's response to question #18:
"Currently there is a confused profusion of Internet sites related to elections, referenda, and public and private governance questions involving a vote. Internet users often have to engage in long and often unproductive searches in order to find all the information they are seeking regarding any given vote in which they are interested. Especially for Spanish-speaking people, finding information on elections can be difficult.
Monolith Registry, LLC envisions the .VOTO TLD to be an easily identifiable Internet space where Spanish-speaking users seeking information on any given election or question that is put to a vote can easily find information regarding issues, candidates and options.
Due to the complexity of accommodating election laws around the world, initially .VOTO will be rolled out only in the U. S. The 85,006 governments in the United States had 513,200 elected officials in 1992, the latest year for which this data is available (http:⁄⁄www.census.gov⁄prod⁄2⁄gov⁄gc⁄gc92_1_2.pdf). By 2002, the governmental units in the United States had grown to 87,576 (http:⁄⁄www.census.gov⁄prod⁄2003pubs⁄gc021x1.pdf), and can be expected to have continued to grow to over 90,000 governmental units with nearly 550,000 elected officials today. Moreover, most elected positions have two or more candidates contesting for the position, pushing the total candidates for all elective offices to well over 1 million. Eventually, as other countries around the world begin to participate, this number is expected to grow exponentially
The .VOTO TLD seeks to make available to each of these candidates a domain by which they can inform the Spanish-speaking electorate about the issues in question and make their case that they are the candidate of choice for that position. Similarly, governmental organizations on all levels can create domains that cover all the relevant information for elections, referenda, and other matters of decision in their jurisdictions.
This will have the effect of creating an easily recognizable Internet space where Spanish-speaking end users can go to readily find the information they seek regarding elections and other matters of choice at all levels of government, thereby greatly reducing the current confusion of domains and difficulty of finding desired information.
Building awareness and knowledge of the TLD and the options it affords governments, candidates, and Spanish-speaking information seekers can be expected to take a couple of major election cycles. Driven by that dynamic, we expect that we will have 12,500 domains under management (DUMs) after three years. .. Domains on .VOTO will be made available to official and verified governments and office seekers (except in the Sunrise period)."[3]
Contract Signed
On November 21, 2013 Monolith Registry LLC received a Registry Agreement signed by ICANN for .voto after passing the Initial Evaluation.[4]
Delegation and Availability
.voto was delegated to the Root Zone of the DNS on 2 March, 2014, completing the successful application for the string.[2]
References
- ↑ Reveal Day 13 June 2012 – New gTLD Applied-For Strings
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Delegated Strings, ICANN.org Retrieved 5 March 2014
- ↑ Application Download, gTLDresults.ICANN.org Retrieved 22 Feb 2013
- ↑ Registry Agreements, ICANN.org Retrieved 02 Dec 2013