ISA main committees include voting and nonvoting members, also called information members.
Voting members are encouraged to attend as many meetings as possible and are responsible for voting on standards and administrative actions and commenting on draft standards. Voting membership on main committees must be balanced across the following interest categories: users, suppliers, integrators, consultants, government/regulators and test/certification providers. This balance is intended to allow fair and open input from all categories without domination by any one category.
Voting members must meet active participation requirements, such as submitting content to the main committees' defined documents, in order to qualify for and maintain voting status. There may be no more than one voting member from the same company or organization. Another employee may serve as the alternate voter, and others may participate as information members. A member may still be active even if unable to attend meetings by staying in contact with the committee chairperson and corresponding regularly through electronic communications.
Information members are observers who receive committee mailings, may attend committee meetings, may submit review comments on documents, and may participate directly in committee work, including writing documents and leading working groups. They do not have a formal vote, but they may apply for voting status if they can meet a committee-defined level of participation. New members to ISA standards committees typically join as information, or nonvoting, members.
