Re: [ARIN-consult] Reminder - Consultation on ARIN’s Membership Structure

[Owen DeLong]

> On Nov 8, 2021, at 09:13 , Bill Woodcock <woody at pch.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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