Re: [ARIN-consult] Reminder - Consultation on ARIN’s Membership Structure
Owen DeLong
owen at delong.com
Mon Nov 8 22:50:35 EST 2021
> On Nov 8, 2021, at 09:13 , Bill Woodcock <woody at pch.net> wrote:
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>> On Nov 8, 2021, at 6:09 PM, Owen DeLong via ARIN-consult <arin-consult at arin.net> wrote:
>> What is the problem with those organizations (continuing to) abstain from voting, but retaining their rights to vote?
>
> Quorum. We can’t hold an election where most members don’t vote, because then the election is invalid and we have to start over.
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> So, we have to make sure that most members vote. Which is already difficult. If we have more members, it becomes even more difficult to achieve quorum.
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> The simplest way of fixing this would be to stop being a membership organization as a legal structure, but retain voting as a governance practice. Had ARIN’s original founders been more clueful in the ways of non-profits, that’s how it would have been set up. Tearing it down and building a new one correctly is possible but not trivial.
Is quorum fixed at “a majority” by law, or is that done by bylaws?
Obviously, if it’s a legal requirement, that’s immutable and we need to get more creative. Given the three year lag
on disenfranchising people, I have to wonder if there isn’t a likely problem even with this proposal.
OTOH, if it’s a bylaw requirement, then perhaps we set a lower quorum threshold as an alternative solution.
Owen
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