The Nominee Selection phase of the March 2026 Security Council election process has commenced here.
What is the Nominee Selection phase?
During this phase, delegates must nominate candidates in order for them to progress to the final round of voting. The aim is to progress as many qualified candidates to the final round (the Member Election) as possible.
Delegates can split their votes across multiple candidates.
To qualify for the final round of voting, each eligible candidate must be supported by pledged votes representing at least 0.2% (~9.8M ARB) of all votable tokens.
This guide highlights some things to consider when evaluating candidates.
When is the Nominee Selection phase?
This phase runs from March 22 until March 29, 2026 - so delegates have 7 days to nominate candidates.
16 candidates have registered for the election, check them out here.
What is the Security Council?
The Security Council is a committee of 12 members who are signers of multi-sig wallets. 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.
To find out more about the Security Council and the Security Council elections, please refer to the following resources:
What about the Security Council Election Process Improvement proposal?
There is an ongoing proposal to improve specific technical aspects of the Security Council election process at the smart contract level. This proposal passed its temperature check in September 2025 and will be taken to an onchain vote in the coming months. If approved by the DAO, these changes would only take effect for future elections, however, would impact the durations of the September 2025 cohort and the incoming March 2026 cohort. Accordingly, it is important for the community to understand these potential changes.
Remember to vote!
We’re counting on you to vote for the next cohort of Security Council members to secure the Arbitrum ecosystem!
I’ve spent the past week reviewing all candidate applications independently as a non-technical governance researcher from India.
One pattern I noticed across multiple candidates: several are active vendors in the Arbitrum Audit Programme, or have ongoing financial relationships with protocols they may be asked to protect or pause as Council members.
A few questions worth the community’s attention during this Nominee Selection phase:
Does the Security Council have a formal, written recusal policy for conflict-of-interest situations? If yes where can the community read it? If no should this election be the moment we establish one?
Delegates have 7 days. The guide linked above covers technical evaluation. But governance accountability deserves equal attention.
These security elections are getting more competitive every time, which only helps Arbitrum. It’s honestly expensive, but no one wants to be cheap on security, it’s arguably the most important thing, and getting these folks to be ready 24/7 is a massive commitment.
I’m confident almost everyone from the list would fit as a good security council member. I ended up voting for:
Yoav: I support his focus on long-term sustainability and deep L2 experience makes him a perfect anchor for the council.
Michael: He does a great job bridging the gap between high-level governance and granular tech security.
Tino (SEEDGov): I actually met him on the Scroll delegate accelerator program! He was teaching us the technicalities and managed to help me understand the tech in a much less complicated way.
Bartek: OG from L2BEAT, has been there since day 1 and knows the architecture inside out.
Blockful: I absolutely love their mentality and how they are constantly pushing the boundaries for better security practices.
My voting rationale for Security Council Election #6.
I made two rounds of votes.
First votes (early signal)
My first votes were meant as an early signal of support to communicate clearly to the community who I believe are strong candidates and should be considered.
Here’s how I thought about it:
Pablo Sabbatella – Pablo’s operational security background is exactly what the Security Council needs. He’s the community leader in opsec and brings very practical, real-world experience. This is the kind of expertise that matters when things go wrong.
bartek.eth (L2BEAT) – Bartek and the L2BEAT team have one of the best overviews of the rollup ecosystem. That context is extremely valuable. If something is happening elsewhere that could impact Arbitrum, they are likely to see it early.
William Bowling (Zellic) – Zellic is a top-tier auditing firm. Having someone from a team like that on the Security Council is just a net positive.
kemmio – Recently found a bug in Solidity, which is kind of insane given how battle-tested it is. That alone says a lot. But beyond that, the tooling and approach he brings to finding exploits is very impressive.
Aragon – Long-standing, trusted org in the space. I also think they can help level up the direction and structure of the Security Council itself. With other players stepping back in the ecosystem, Aragon could play an important strategic role.
Hudson Jameson – OG of OGs. Deeply connected, experienced, and someone i have done crises response with first hand.
Gustavo Grieco / Michael Lewellen / Yoav – These are all rockstars I trust can show up when it matters. Reliability is underrated for this role. Michael and Yoav especially already know the Security Council flow so they are no brainers.
blockful (Alex Netto) – I’ve been really impressed with the governance attack analysis they’ve been doing recently. Yes, there was controversy around LobbyFi in the previous round, but I see that as them pushing boundaries to surface real issues. I don’t think that should disqualify them, if anything, it shows they care. I think people have jumped the gun on assuming their intentions on all that
Overall, my thinking here was simple: getting more of these people involved in Arbitrum is a win.
Second votes (final allocation)
Toward the end, with about an hour left, I added my votes to support candidates who were at risk of not making it but who I strongly believe should be on the council.
Specifically:
Aragon
blockful
William Bowling (Zellic)
kemmio
I used my voting power to push kemmio over the line, and am glad to see Aragon and blockful make it in the final moments.
Thanks everyone for sharing detailed voting rationales and context around the nominee selection process.
Building on this, I’d like to resurface a point I raised earlier regarding conflicts of interest and recusals for Security Council members. In high‑stakes governance like Arbitrum’s, clear, written standards for when nominees (or sitting Council members) should recuse themselves from discussions, campaigning, or voting can materially strengthen legitimacy and trust in the process.
Could the Foundation or Elections WG clarify:
Whether there is an existing, formal recusal / conflict‑of‑interest policy for Security Council elections, and
If not, whether there is openness to drafting one before future election cycles?
As someone actively researching DAO governance and protocol risk, I see Arbitrum as a reference model for other ecosystems, and this feels like low‑hanging fruit to further harden the institutional design.
MconnectDAO — appreciate you bringing this up. It’s the kind of thing that doesn’t always get enough attention in governance discussions but has real implications for how the DAO operates long-term. I’ve been following a lot of these threads closely as part of my own governance involvement, and it’s encouraging to see contributors thinking about this. Would be interested to hear how your thinking has evolved since posting. @MconnectDAO@Arbitrum_bot
Thanks for engaging on this yes, my thinking has
gotten more specific since that post.
The core concern isn’t about any individual nominee.
It’s structural: some nominees come from auditing firms,
ecosystem orgs, or governance research backgrounds that
have or could develop a financial or strategic
relationship with Arbitrum protocols.
Without a written recusal standard, every conflict
gets handled by individual judgment. That works until
it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t, it becomes a
legitimacy crisis, not just a process question.
The ask isn’t complicated: a basic recusal disclosure
framework as a standard governance hygiene practice
before the next election cycle. It protects the
nominees as much as it protects the DAO. @Aeontrinity
