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The DSF has proposed a new voting membership status that would change how it calculates quorum for Board elections. Members who voted in a Board election during the previous two years would be considered active, while other members could restore active status by notifying the organization before an election. The proposal is open for public comment through October 7, 2026.
Membership Would Remain Intact
The proposed change would not remove anyone from the DSF or from its public membership listing. Instead, it would separate membership from participation in quorum calculations. Members without recent voting activity would remain members but would not count toward quorum until they indicate that they intend to vote.
The DSF says it would send reminders before elections and publish notices on its blog and forum. A member seeking to vote would need to contact the organization before voting opens so they could be added to the active roll.
Quorum Pressure Drives Proposal
Under the current system, quorum is measured against every member on the rolls, including people who no longer participate in elections. The DSF says continued membership growth makes that threshold increasingly difficult to meet and could put the validity of elections at risk.
As a point of comparison, the proposal cites the Python Software Foundation's practice of asking voting members to affirm their intention to participate. It also notes that the PSF Board approved an exception in June 2024 for members who had voted in the preceding Board election.
Board Vote Could Follow
A corresponding bylaw amendment has been published on GitHub, and the proposal has already been discussed on the Django Forum and at DjangoCon US. Feedback can be submitted through the pull request or, for DSF members, through a members-only forum thread.
After the comment period closes, the Board plans to review the responses. If the community raises no major objections, it will consider the change at its October 8, 2026 Board of Directors meeting. Until that vote occurs, the active-member system remains a proposal rather than an adopted election rule.
Source: Proposed change to DSF voting membership
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