March 2025 Contender Submission Phase

Security Council Security Council Elections
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The Contender Submission phase of the March 2025 Security Council election process has commenced on Tally.

When is the Contender Submission phase?

This phase runs for 7 days, from March 15 until March 22, 2025.

Election Stages (1)
Election Stages (1)1920×960 71.9 KB

What is the Contender Submission phase?

During this phase, anyone (including individuals and/or entities) interested in serving on the Security Council, can apply to be a candidate.

Candidates should familiarize themselves with what makes a good Security Council member and be able to fulfil the responsibilities of a Security Council member as outlined here: Security Council Members: Duties and Principles.

How to Apply?

Candidates must use a fresh EOA from a new (or newly reset) hardware wallet, to apply on Tally.

Those interested in applying should also inform the community via the forum by creating a forum post on the ‘Security Council Elections’ subcategory and include details such as background and credentials.

Detailed instructions on how to apply can be found here: How to Register as a Candidate.

If you are registering as an entity, there are additional non-exhaustive criteria that should be met, which can be viewed here: Security Council Elections 101.

What is the Security Council ?

  • The Security Council is a committee of 12 members who are signers of a multi-sig wallet. They are responsible for combatting any critical risks associated with the Arbitrum protocol by making time-sensitive & emergency response decisions. Accordingly, the Security Council is key to securing the Arbitrum ecosystem.
  • Security Council Elections are held every 6 months, and allow the DAO to elect 6 new Security Council members.
  • Actively participating in Security Council Elections is one of the most important responsibilities of the ArbitrumDAO.

If you want to find out more about the Security Council and the Security Council elections, please refer to the following resources:

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Perhaps this has already been settled in previous threads or voted proposals, but since I raised it in the Spearbit Labs candidacy thread I will also mention it here so it can be properly addressed without hijacking another thread.

The DAO Constitution as it is written seems to, by my interpretation, allow for “members” as in single individuals, but there is no mention or clear implied allowance for whole organizations being “members”.

My interpretation of the DAO Constitution is that it is fine and proper for any individual to represent any organization as a candidate for the security council, but that it is only allowed for a single identifiable and KYC’able individual to be a candidate, not a whole organization all at once. My reasons for this are 3:

  1. Overall language
    The overall language regarding the security council in the DAO Constitution clearly numbers the members as 6 per cohort, implying that each member represents just one individual, and not a plurality of “sub-members” who each take part (in some undefined way) in the cohort.

  2. Organizations and candidates are differentiated in the independence section
    Here is also a relevant section, emphasis mine:
    As a matter of best practice for maintaining an independent Security Council, no single organization should be overly represented in the Security Council. In particular, **there should not be more than 3 candidates associated with a single entity or group of entities being elected to the Security Council**, thereby ensuring that there will be no single entity or group of entities able to control or even veto a Security Council vote.
    Note here the clear separation between “candidates”, being the elected members of the council, from “entity or group of entities”, such as an organization.

  3. Ethical requirements on candidates would be unenforceable with regards to organizations
    That section is followed by another:
    Furthermore, no candidate with conflicts of interest that would prevent them from acting in the best interests of the ArbitrumDAO, Governed Chains and/or The Arbitrum Foundation should be elected to the Security Council. Potential conflicts of interest could be, but are not limited to, affiliations with direct Arbitrum competitors, proven histories of exploiting projects and others.
    In my opinion this becomes basically unenforceable, if an organization of multiple individuals can be considered a “candidate” for the council.

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Hi @Hawheik, thanks for your comment.

Both individuals and entities can apply to be members of the Security Council. However, as mentioned in the Security Council Elections 101, entities will need to appoint an individual who will be responsible for operating on behalf of the entity on the Security Council.

Accordingly, we agree that any entities who are applying should mention the appointed representative on their respective forum post. This is also a requirement when officially applying on Tally.

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