So this was seemingly part of the big upgrade this week - and I hadn't seen any discussion about it anywhere, so wanted to draw some attention to it.

The collective module (so, this effects council and the tech. committee) [now has a privileged member, known as the "prime" who can determine what the default vote for any abstaining voters is at the end of a given voting period ](https://github.com/paritytech/substrate/pull/5137) the Prime is currently selected as the "most popular" member (based on phragmén vote, not popular vote!) in council. 

I guess this is one solution to the problem of absentee council members ([more discussion on the topic here](https://kusama.polkassembly.io/post/28)) - if you do not vote, you are giving your decision to the most popular councilor. 

- There was a big upgrade this week.
- The collective module now has a privileged member called the "prime."
- The prime can decide the default vote for people who don't vote.
- This is a solution to the problem of absentee council members.
- You can read more about it in the discussion link.

#32 "Prime" member in council? Tl;dr