Consultation on Implementing Single Transferrable Voting for ARIN Elections

Posted: Thursday, 06 January 2022

The Board of Trustees maintains authority over the scope, mission, and along with the President and Chief Executive Officer establishes ARIN’s strategic direction and fiscal oversight. The Board also has oversight authority of the nomination, appointment, and election of individuals to Board committees and similar roles.

Over the past two years, as part of its fiduciary duties, the ARIN Board of Trustees (“Board”) has undertaken a review of ARIN’s governance structures, including the voting system for ARIN elections. As part of this effort, an independent, outside consultant was engaged to review ARIN’s governance structures and provide recommendations.

One recommendation that has arisen from this governance review is to replace the current first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system with single transferrable voting (STV), also known as ranked-choice voting. STV would provide the ability for the community to realize the following primary benefits:

  • Greater voting choice. Voters rank candidates in order of preference;
  • A more proportional result. Successful candidates more broadly represent voter sentiment versus a single issue. There is better representation of member minority views;
  • No wasted votes. Fewer votes are cast for losing candidates or needlessly cast for run-away winners;
  • Designed for multiple winners; and
  • Reduced opportunities for tactical voting.

STV has some disadvantages:

  • It is possible for a single candidate to win without crossing the winning threshold;
  • The process is more complicated to understand and implement than FPTP; and
  • In some cases, ballots that don’t rank all candidates may be discarded.

We feel the benefits above outweigh the disadvantages. STV is currently being used by RIPE.

Board Proposal:

ARIN will use an online, fully electronic STV system for ARIN elections.

The nomination process existing at the time of implementation will be used. Modifications to the nomination process to implement STV are expected to be minimal.

ARIN seeks community feedback on this proposed use of the STV system for ARIN elections and the required amendments to ARIN’s Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws. This consultation will remain open for 30 days.

  • Changes to Articles of Incorporation: Exhibit A
  • Redline changes to ARIN Bylaws: Exhibit B

Please provide comments to arin-consult@arin.net. You can subscribe to this mailing list at: http://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-consult.

Discussion on arin-consult@arin.net will close on 7 February 2022.

Regards,

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)