Designing a reliable group membership algorithm for mobile ad hoc networks is a non-trivial task since we must deal with limited device power, possibilities of frequent disconnections and network partitions. The function of the group membership service is to maintain a consistent group view across all members of the group. Only then can we say that the group membership service is reliable. Reliable group membership protocols in distributed systems (e.g., the virtual partitioning (VP) algorithm) make free use of aborts as a tactic to ensure the reliability of group formation. We present a group membership algorithm based on VP that minimizes message exchanges and thus reduces the power spent in transmission by detecting and eliminating superfluous aborts. © 2002 IEEE.