We are concerned with multi-agent systems which are open, volatile, and decentralised, and which require collective use of a limited common resource. We define an institution to regulate access to the resource through a vote. We then investigate the adaptation of the voting rules to deal with the volatility of the agent presence, with the aim of achieving some semblance of ‘satisfaction’ without depleting the resource. Progress towards implementation of an experimental testbed, for animating this type of multi-agent system, is described and preliminary results are presented.