Tldr:
- The Security Council is a vital part of the Arbitrum ecosystem trusted to respond to critical emergencies.
- Security Council Elections are held every 6 months, and allow the DAO to elect new Security Council members (which can be individuals and/or entities).
- Actively participating in Security Council Elections is one of the most important responsibilities of the Arbitrum DAO.
On September 15, 2025, the fifth Arbitrum Security Council Election process will commence. Here, we’ll give you the overview of everything you need to know: what the Security Council is, how the Security Council elections work, and how you can participate.
Background
The DAO-governed Arbitrum chains — like all software — sometimes need to be upgraded. Arbitrum’s governance system provides two ways for the upgrades to take place: via a DAO proposal, or via the Security Council.
DAO proposals can be submitted by anyone, are transparent, and are deliberately designed to take weeks to finalize. This time allows Arbitrum delegates to vote on the proposal, and ensures that, if the proposal passes, Arbitrum users will still have an opportunity to “opt out” of it by withdrawing their funds before it takes effect.
Some upgrades, however, need to happen quickly — namely, upgrades that fix a critical bug discovered in the system. For this class of upgrades, quick effectuation is necessary to ensure no attacker can exploit the vulnerability once it is public. These fast-upgrades can be carried out by the Security Council.
The Security Council consists of 12 members, any 9 of whose signature is required to authorize an upgrade. The current Security Council members can be seen in the Foundation documentation or via Tally.
As of this writing, only one emergency upgrade has been necessary:
However, given the known-unknown risk of undiscovered bugs, having an emergency upgrade contingency plan remains vital. The Security Council is trusted to only ever use its ability for fast upgrades in order to recover from emergencies; however, the Constitution also describes the non-emergency path for the Security Council, which has been used a handful of times:
- Non-emergency action to update Arbitrum Nova’s DAC keyset
- Non-emergency action to fix a fee oversight in The ArbOS Version 20 “Atlas” upgrade
- Non-emergency action to facilitate key rotation of the Security Council in June 2024
- Non-emergency action to facilitate key rotation of the Security Council in October 2024
- Non-emergency action to facilitate key rotation of the Security Council in December 2024
Thus, it is important that the DAO places great importance and deliberation in electing reputable and trustworthy individuals and/or entities to the Security Council.
Security Council Election: Overview
Security Council elections are a way for the DAO to periodically elect new members (and/or explicitly re-elect members) of the Security Council, ensuring that members remain aligned with the values and best interests of the DAO. These members can be individuals and/or entities.
In brief: the 12 members of the Security Council are split into two groups of six, called “cohorts.” Every 6 months, the six seats in one of the cohorts are all up for election, with the target cohort alternating each election cycle. During an election, any party can submit themselves as a candidate in the election. During the election process, the DAO votes on candidates such that ultimately the top 6 are chosen; after a brief grace period, these 6 candidates replace the 6 candidates in the outgoing cohort, finishing the election.
Security Council Election: In Detail
The following is a more detailed overview of the different phases of a Security Council Election:
Phase 1: Call for Candidates - Now till Sep 15, 2025
Anyone (including individuals and/or entities) interested in participating as a candidate in the Security Council Elections is encouraged to inform the community of their plans to run on the governance forum, by:
- Creating a profile post on the ‘Security Council Elections’ category which could include background and relevant details, as well as reasons why delegates should vote for them
- Using the ‘sep-2025-elections’ tag so delegates can identify that the applicant is running for the upcoming elections in September
Phase 2: Contender Submission - Sep 15 till Sep 22, 2025 (7 days)
During this phase, any party can register as a candidate for a Security Council position, so long as they are not already a member of the other cohort (the cohort not currently up for election).
Phase 3: Nominee Selection (first voting phase) - Sep 22 till Sep 29, 2025 (7 Days)
During this phase, delegates can cast votes for candidates. Delegates can split their votes across as many candidates as they please; i.e., if Steve has a total of 1000 delegated votes, he can cast 300 votes for Alice and 700 votes for Bob.
Any candidate that receives votes representing 0.2% of all voteable tokens advances to the next phase.
Phase 4: Compliance Process - Sep 29 till Oct 13, 2025 (14 Days)
During this phase, as dictated in the Constitution, candidates who receive votes representing 0.2% of all voteable tokens in the Nominee Selection phase, must undergo a compliance check undertaken by the Arbitrum Foundation to ensure they comply with the legal requirements, service agreements, and additional rules dictated by the Constitution. Candidates can start the compliance process by reaching out to “scelection@arbitrum.foundation”.
While entities are eligible to run in the Security Council elections, the community should be aware that they are electing an entity and not an individual. These entities should be established and mature companies that are a part of the Ethereum ecosystem. The entities will need to complete the necessary compliance steps, including the entity’s appointed individual who will be responsible for operating on behalf of the entity on the Security Council.
The Arbitrum Foundation has additional criteria for entities seeking to serve on the Security Council:
- Mature organizations with a sizeable workforce,
- Active and offers a service that benefits the blockchain community,
- Operating for at least 1 year with sufficient runway to continue for at least three years.
The above list is not exhaustive and the Arbitrum Foundation holds discretion to decide whether an entity is eligible for the election.
Note that for a candidate to be excluded at this phase, the Foundation must take a public, on-chain action.
All candidates that are not excluded during the compliance check, and advance to the next phase.
Phase 5: Member Election (second voting phase) - Oct 13 till Nov 3, 2025 (21 Days)
During this phase, delegates voting power is “reset” from the Nominee Selection phase (first voting phase); delegates vote on candidates until 6 are selected as members of the new cohort.
The member selection phase is comprised of two sub-phases: full-weight voting, and decreasing-weight voting.
5a. Full Weight Voting - Oct 13 till Oct 20, 2025 (7 Days)
During this sub-phase, delegates vote with the full weight of the votes delegated to them.
5b. Decreasing Weight Voting - Oct 20 till Nov 3, 2025 (14 Days)
During this sub-phase, delegates voting power decreases linearly; i.e., at the beginning of the sub-phase they can vote with 100% of their voting weight, and by the end, their votes have 0 weight.
As with voting in the Nominee Selection phase, delegates can split their votes across multiple candidates.
For example: Steve — who, recall, used all 1000 of his votes in the Nominee Selection phase, now, during the full weight voting phase, has 1000 votes once again. Say he casts 600 votes for Bob and 100 for Christine, leaving him with 300 votes left.
Then, he waits until he is 7 days into the decreasing weight voting phase before voting again. At this point he casts all of his votes for Daniel; since he is 50% of the way through this phase, his voting power is decreased by 50%, so Daniel gets 150 votes, and Steve has no more votes to cast.
At the end of the Member selection phase, the six candidates with the most votes are the winners, and are set to become members of the Security Council.
Phase 6: Grace Period (18 Days)
This period is simply a delay period after the new members have been officially elected and before they actually become members of the Security Council. This delay period allows Arbitrum users to withdraw their funds if they so chose before the new council members are put into place (as per the constitution), and is also required so that the election results can propagate to the Security Council contracts across all relevant chains.
How To Participate
The election process is carried on via on-chain smart contracts which can be accessed through the Tally interface here; discussion around elections is encouraged on the governance forums.
Here are ways to get involved:
Potential Candidates
If you (as an individual and/or entity) are interested in putting yourself up for vote to become a member of the Security Council, you are encouraged to carefully review the compliance requirements, risks, and responsibilities involved. For more info, see how to register, duties and principles and the Security Council section of DAO Constitution.
If you think you’re suited for the job, you can campaign for yourself and engage with the community by posting on the governance forum.
Delegates
Delegates are encouraged to vote!
Recall that there are two phases during which a delegate can vote; filtering through all candidates to filter for the high-quality ones, and then picking the top six from these high-quality candidates (i.e., phases 2 and 4 above).
Delegates are encouraged to carefully consider the decreasing weight mechanism (4b above) so they can optimize their strategy accordingly.
Community Members
All members of the Arbitrum community — whether or not they have delegate votes — are encouraged to participate in elections via public platforms like the governance forum and weigh in on who they think would be strong candidates for security council membership.
For any questions, please reach out to the Arbitrum Foundation Governance Team (@raam, @Mateusz or @amanwithwings ) or the Security Council email (scelection@arbitrum.foundation)