[Election & Application Thread] V2 Arbitrum Research & Development Collective

[Entropy]

With the ARDC V2 elections being the first that are shielded, we’d like to provide delegates with clarifying context on the procedures.

First, any delegate not participating in the election as an ARDC candidate is free to vote however they wish. If a potential conflict of interest exists, it should be disclosed on the forums before voting as outlined in the Delegate Code of Conduct.

Delegates that are participating in the ARDC election should adhere to the Responsible Voting Policy. For the Risk, Research, and Security elections, the number of seats is equal to 1; therefore, candidates are permitted to put 100% of their vote on themself.

@Entropy

A candidate’s self-vote percentage should always be less than or equal to 100/n, where n = number of seats.

While this may seem strange, we will remind delegates that the policy is an effort to strike a balance between preventing delegates from unfavorably electing themselves into a position of power & compensation while allowing them to still effectively represent their communities and tokenholders.

A candidate may vote for multiple other candidates as long as their own weight is not greater than the others. This is to decrease the risk of collusion.

@Entropy

• A candidate’s self-vote weight should not be larger than any of the weights for other candidates. Both of the following examples would be considered violations:
  • Unacceptable Example: In an election with 7 seats, the candidate votes 94% for themselves and 1% for 6 other candidates.
  • Unacceptable Example: In an election with 7 seats and a total of 15 candidates, a delegate votes 10% for themselves and 6.43% for all other candidates.
• Candidates may vote for less or more candidates than seats available as long as they adhere to the above restrictions. This allows delegates to retain the power to express a certain level of preference, but does increase the risk for collusion. Any suspected instances of collusion will be investigated by the Arbitrum Foundation and will be grounds for disqualification.
  • Acceptable Example: In a 7-seat election, a candidate self-votes for themself with 14.286% and 85.714% for another candidate.
  • Acceptable Example: In a 7-seat election, a candidate splits their vote equally across 10 candidates, each getting 10%.

Using the Risk election as an example (1 seat, 5 candidates), acceptable voting manners would include:

• A candidate can vote 100% for themselves.
• A candidate voting 10% for themselves and 90% for another preferred candidate.
• A candidate voting 10% for themselves and 22.5% for the other 4 candidates.
• A candidate voting 10% for themselves, 60% for their preferred candidates, and 10% for the other 3 candidates.
• A candidate voting 50% for themselves and 50% for another preferred candidate

As always, a candidate is also welcome to abstain from the election.

@Entropy

Candidates are allowed to abstain or vote in a neutral manner to effectively abstain, ie., voting or splitting their vote equally across all candidates.

The Supervisory Council Communications position has 2 seats. Therefore, a participating candidate’s self vote should not exceed 50% while also adhering to the above mentioned guidelines.

Entropy is happy to answer or consult participating candidates who may have questions about the Responsible Voting Policy. Please refer to the recently posted Arbitrum DAO Code of Conduct & Arbitrum DAO Procedure posts in the Announcements section for the most up to date versions of the documents and refer to our recent comments (1, 2) in the relevant forum proposal for further information about posting rationales during the election.