What is 'Quadratic Voting', which is attracting attention in digital democracy?



Many votes, including the election of members of the Diet in Japan, are one vote per person, so it is not possible to vote by saying, 'Basically, I support this candidate, but I also want to support that candidate.' Unlike such a simple voting system, it is possible to put votes

weighted according to one's interest into multiple options. Austin Robbie , a lecturer at New School University in New York, explained.

A Simple Guide to Quadratic Voting | by Austin Robey | Aug, 2022 |
https://blog.tally.xyz/a-simple-guide-to-quadratic-voting-327b52addde1

Quadratic boating takes place in two main stages. The first is 'credit allocation', where each voter is given a 'credit' as a budget. For example, if one person is given 100 credits, the voter can either spend all 100 credits on one option or allocate credits to multiple options.

Next is the tally of votes. When tallied, votes are calculated from the square root of credits allocated to each choice. For example, a person who put all 100 credits in one option would have 10 votes, 25 credits would have 5 votes, 4 credits would have 2 votes, and so on.



Robbie said quadratic voting helps to defend minorities and balance power relations with the majority. Because while minorities are able to get more votes for their concerns, the more they spend on one option, the higher the cost, making it less likely to lead to unbalanced results. It's from Also, in some cases, it is easier to get a sense of the community's sentiments compared to ordinary voting methods.

On the other hand, if there are only two options, there is not much point in weighting them, so a simple majority vote is better. Also, quadratic voting is not very popular, so it is not suitable for simple voting.

A notable example of quadratic voting in action is an experimental poll by the Colorado House of Representatives in April 2019. The vote awarded 100 tokens to each member of parliament and voted on 107 bills to prioritize the bills to be enacted over the next two years. In addition, it seems that there was no lawmaker who put all his tokens in one bill.


by Greg O'Beirne

In addition, quadratic voting has been enthusiastically researched, especially in blockchain -related communities such as DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) , and Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin often talks about it in his blogs and interviews. I'm here.

Robbie concludes by stating, “Quadratic voting will not be the only voting method that meets the needs of all communities. Adopting voting can be an effective way to democratically distribute resources, capture community sentiment, and give minorities greater power.'

in Note, Posted by log1l_ks