Removing ABSTAIN from quorum count is a bad idea and goes against voting principles. Abstain is there for a reason - when you don’t count it toward quorum, you’re essentially making proposals harder to pass.
Think about it: if we’re 4 friends and quorum is 3, 2 vote for, 1 against, and 1 abstains - this is clearly a proposal that should pass. The person abstaining is signaling they don’t have a strong opinion and want to go with the majority.
LobbyFi having power isn’t some attack - it’s coz ARB holders decided to delegate this way. At the end of the day, our job is to make ARB holders’ wealth grow.
If we’re concerned about governance security, we could consider raising quorum instead - at least that’s an honest approach that doesn’t mess with the intended meaning of ABSTAIN votes.
Yes, this is explicitly the goal. Make proposals harder to pass. They are good and popular it won’t matter too much, and if they are very contentious or possibly part of a governance attack they will be harder to get through.
The following reflects the views of the Lampros DAO governance team, composed of Chain_L (@Blueweb), @Euphoria, and Hirangi Pandya (@Nyx), based on our combined research, analysis, and ideation.
Thank you for bringing up this proposal @cupojoseph. We appreciate your concern about preventing governance attacks, as this is something we have also been researching for a while, particularly the impact of voting power on governance decisions. Strengthening governance security is essential, and we fully support making it a priority for the long-term resilience of the DAO.
The proposal mentions LobbyFi as the motivation for excluding abstain votes, aiming to prevent them from leveraging neutral votes to meet quorum. However, we want to mention LobbyFi does not rely on abstentions alone it can just as easily be used to influence ‘For’ or ‘Against’ votes as well.
As @Curia pointed out, historical data analysis suggests that excluding abstain votes hasn’t significantly altered past proposal outcomes. This raises the question of whether removing abstentions from a quorum will meaningfully enhance security or if it may create new governance risks. ARDC’s research should analyze the actual impact of abstentions on past voting results and evaluate whether dynamic quorum adjustments as suggested by other delegates as well based on proposal significance would be a better alternative.
If abstain votes are not counted in the quorum, delegates may feel their voices are not acknowledged unless they vote ‘For’ or ‘Against’. This could create a perception that neutral participation holds less value, potentially impacting engagement over time. While it’s uncertain if this would reduce participation, ensuring all voting choices remain meaningful is crucial for long-term governance health.
Another issue we think is of quorum recalibration. Increasing the quorum too much could make it harder for proposals to pass, potentially slowing governance decisions. On the other hand, reducing quorum while removing abstentions could allow a small number of large delegates to pass or reject proposals more easily. A balanced approach is needed to prevent governance attacks without unintentionally distorting voting power dynamics.
We appreciate the proposal’s approach of prioritizing research before implementation, as governance changes should be based on historical analysis, technical validation, and empirical data. Instead of treating this as a single quorum adjustment, ARDC’s findings should help shape a broader governance security framework that ensures Arbitrum remains both secure and inclusive without discouraging participation. As of now we support this proposal moving forward as a research initiative and look forward to ARDC’s insights on the best approach to enhancing governance security.
The proposal would pass with only the Yes, votes. The quorum was not secured by the “abstain” votes.
We must remember, as others mentioned, that:
The quorum is continuously rising
Abstain is a valid option for several reasons: COI, limited support for the proposal, etc.
You could argue that we should have the abstain option in the off-chain (snapshot) vote and in the onchain vote only the For/Against option, like Aave does, but both DAOs are different (their supply is not increasing, for example).
If we want to go through that route, COI policies would need to be forfeit/changed in the on-chain vote. This is “kind of” a paradigm change (I say “kind of” because usually ppl with COI vote “Abstain”, so they also help to achieve quorum).
IMO, that would be a more helpful suggestion instead of only asking for “Abstain” to be removed from quorum, which only hurts our chances to achieve quorum on ANY type of vote (as the VP participating in the votes are not increasing at the same rate as the quorum requirements).
The proposal presents several areas that require clarification… especially with regard to the definition of the quorum. It is not specified whether it is a fixed number or a percentage of the total ARB supply, which is critical when considering excluding “Abstain” votes. This ambiguity makes me wonder whether the same numerical threshold will be maintained or whether a proportional adjustment will be made, otherwise “legitimate” proposals could be unfairly penalized by a low turnout.
In addition, the 6-8 week timeline is overly optimistic, as it does not account for possible delays resulting from audits or community disputes. Nor does it address whether Abstain votes should continue to be considered a valid form of expression (which I fervently believe are useful and necessary), as they could reflect a neutral or disgruntled stance without necessarily blocking proposals. I think that the proposal needs to include a deeper analysis of quorum, technical and economic risks, and establish clear consultation channels to ensure the participation of all stakeholders in the process.
Interesting. In favor of having the ARDC research this to gather information on the relationship between abstaining and quorum, and its effects on governance and capture. We’re not aware if any other ecosystems have taken out “abstain” from quorum.
Even if we don’t modify the contract, taking a closer look at the potential effects makes sense to us. It may also be interesting to see its relationship with participation and quorum increases.
Absolutely, we don’t deny that excluding abstain votes can influence proposal outcomes.
Regarding the Hackathon Continuation Program by @danielo and the team, I remember that during the tally voting, they put in efforts to ensure the proposal reached the quorum by reaching out to delegates individually and encouraging them to vote.
This is why ARDC’s research should analyze whether removing abstain votes strengthens governance security without reducing participation or making it harder for legitimate proposals to reach the quorum.
We appreciate the proposal’s intent in trying to prevent manipulation of the voting process and prevent exploits. What is being suggested could be good for a more deliberate decision making process rather than having voters defaulting to being neutral to proposals which could encourage deeper looks and assessments of proposals.
However, removing the abstain option would definitely impact voter behaviour. Forcing individuals to vote in such a binary method creates pressure to choose a side even if they do not have strong opinions. This pressure may lead to votes that do not accurately represent individuals’ true views, with some voters feeling compelled to cast a definite vote despite not fully understanding the proposal or having formed a well-considered opinion (additional point: this can result in lower-quality decision-making as voters may rely on impulse or incomplete information).
Moreover, removing the abstain option could limit participation as a whole. Those who are uncertain would opt out of voting entirely without being able to cast a vote for being neutral or need for further consideration. A proposal sometimes may just need further refinements or expansion on detail and abstaining, and abstaining offers a way for voters to indicate that they are engaged but require more information before making a definitive choice.
i have never suggested this. please read the topic before replying.
not sure why everyone is having the same misunderstanding. it looks like all these replies are AI generated slop trying to farm future airdrop or delegate rewards by having participation? I dont get it.
We were spot checking this and most of it seems right but we think a few columns are a bit off (many of the values in column Y look like they’re adding the for and against votes together). We’ve made a slightly different sheet here, using the same counts for quorum and for/against/abstain votes, just with fewer and what we think are fixed columns, would appreciate a third set of eyes going over the numbers though. Regardless, we’re finding largely the same results, with the exception of one proposal that passed but wouldn’t have without the abstain votes, though it was by a relatively small margin.
had a quorum of 122,648,495 and 121,903,727 for votes + 14,337,585 abstain votes. if we didn’t count abstain it would need 744,768 more votes in favor to pass.
We’re not sure this is true. As we mentioned earlier, many of the proposals that barely made it over quorum are things like network upgrades. For example, if you look at something like the BoLD proposal which had the lowest amount over quorum at 104.52%, you can see that it isn’t exactly a contentious vote, with 210.66M ‘for’, 5.68K ‘against’ and 8.8K ‘abstain’. This was a good and popular proposal that was still harder to get through than most.
Using the same 10 passed proposals as earlier, we can also see that the majority have near 100% support rates, but a low margin of safety over the quorum.
Given that these are some of the most important proposals in the DAO, we would not support making it any harder to get them passed, especially if quorum continues to rise as more tokens leave the main treasury.
Separately, this is frustrating but it’s not the first time it’s happened. This proposal comes to mind for us Proposal for Financial Restitution For ArbitrumDAO Grant Winners. The problem wasn’t that the token price had changed in a vacuum, but that there was such a delay in payment.
the same problems from then are the same problems we have now.
Hi @Vertex_Protocol, thank you so much for catching that mistake in our sheet! We accidentally shared the wrong version, but we’ve now updated it with the correct one. We really appreciate it!
yes! and they explicitly asked delegates (on twitter) to vote abstain, just to reach quorum, even if they didn’t agree with the proposal completely.
This was a case where a proposal was rushed through the governance process, to be decided before the holiday break, where the proposer claimed it had to be done fast so that the builders of the hackathon wouldn’t leave Arbitrum.
Also, this proposal had the most Against votes ever for an onchain proposal in Arbitrum DAO (for a proposal that wasn’t supposed to be a mistake, and therefore cancelled) and it eventually achieved quorum and passed 2 months ago, and we are still to see any results from it. Hackathon Continuation Program - #147 by paulofonseca
As the Arbitrum DAO continues to evolve, it makes sense to reassess our governance parameters to ensure they align with our current stage of decentralization and security needs.
But, what is the specific advantage of excluding ‘Abstain’ votes from quorum calculations compared to simply increasing the quorum requirement?
While I understand the concern about potential exploitation via automated bribe mechanisms, I’d like to better understand how this change compares to alternative solutions.
More broadly, I believe we should focus on increasing security for particularly sensitive proposals—such as those involving significant treasury allocations—while maintaining an efficient and seamless governance process for everything else.
A potential path forward could be adjusting quorum requirements dynamically based on the type of proposal, ensuring stricter thresholds for high-stakes decisions without unnecessarily complicating routine governance.
even worse, they are prompted by AI summarization governance apps that misunderstood your proposal and propagated the wrong information about this proposal. =/
but you know, it’s a good litmus test to see who actually reads proposals or not. =)
Follow-up: We sincerely apologise for our confusion. Some of our team members are new to this governance process and are very apologetic for misreading the proposal, not truly understanding governance functionality and spreading misinformation. Thank you for the call-out and for clarifying our misunderstanding. After carefully reviewing the details, we understand the intent and agree with what you are proposing that this problem needs to be addressed. We did use AI to help with our research on the topic, but our final comment was from our own analysis and understanding.
We’ve been involved in governance since day one (before even earning delegate rewards) and we do intend to contribute meaningfully and not farm airdrops and exploit governance rewards. This was an honest mistake and again, we will make sure to be more careful in our next comments.
