Inclusive Voting Mechanism Proposal for Lisk

Discussions
1

I was thinking of improving voting and allowing everyone owning Lisk tokens to vote. This idea would make Lisk project more decentralized and simplify the voting process allowing much higher user participation in voting on proposals.

Primary Access via Lisk Website Voting Portal

  • Central Voting Hub: The Lisk website serves as the main portal for all users—whether they hold Lisk on exchanges or in self-custody wallets—to participate in governance. Users can easily access voting options, view proposals, and learn about eligibility requirements.
  • DDoS Protection and Load Balancing: To ensure stable access during high-traffic periods, the voting portal will utilize advanced DDoS protection, such as Cloudflare or similar services, and load balancing to distribute traffic evenly. This prevents disruptions that could impact voting reliability.
  • CDN Integration for Fast Access: A content delivery network (CDN) will cache static parts of the voting site across multiple global nodes, reducing the load on the core servers and minimizing downtime risk from DDoS attempts.
  • Backup Verification Layer: In case of site inaccessibility, voting via official Lisk wallets (desktop or mobile) offers an alternative channel, ensuring users can still cast their votes if the website faces performance issues.

1. Exchange-Based Voting for Custodial Holders:

  • Proxy Voting through Exchanges: Partner with exchanges listing Lisk to enable a voting proxy. Users holding Lisk on an exchange can vote directly through the exchange platform without needing a Lisk wallet.
  • Aggregate Voting Submission: Exchanges aggregate user votes and submit them in bulk, representing the votes of verified Lisk holders while safeguarding individual user privacy.

2. Website-Based Voting for Self-Custody Users:

  • Flexible Authentication: Users with self-custodied wallets authenticate through a one-time signed message, confirming wallet ownership. This is optional for exchange-based holders.
  • User-Friendly Voting Interface: A simple, intuitive interface on the Lisk voting portal allows users to connect their wallet directly if preferred, making participation seamless for self-custody users.

3. One-Vote-Per-Holder with Locked Voting Power:

  • Single Vote per Proposal: Each verified holder, whether through an exchange or wallet, can only cast one vote per proposal.
  • Voting Power Lock: A snapshot of each voter’s balance is taken at the time of voting, and this balance is “locked” for that proposal, ensuring:
    • Static Voting Power Post-Vote: Users can still transact normally, but any balance change post-vote doesn’t impact their locked voting power for that specific proposal.
    • No Duplicate Influence from New Tokens: Additional tokens received post-vote won’t alter voting power, preventing manipulation.

4. Anti-Manipulation via Voting Eligibility Window:

  • Cooling Period Requirement: Tokens must have been held for a minimum period (e.g., 24–48 hours) before voting, preventing last-minute “quick transfer” manipulations.
  • Eligibility Check During Voting: The system confirms that all tokens counted toward voting power have been in the wallet or exchange for the required period.

5. Decentralized Security for Direct Votes:

  • Decentralized Signature Verification: For self-custody users, decentralized signature verification ensures security by eliminating centralized data storage risks.
  • Smart Contracts for Transparent Voting Management: Official smart contracts handle voting and tallying, ensuring transparency, security, and reliability without centralized risks.

6. Weighted Delegate Voting for Community Incentives:

  • Delegate Vote Multipliers: Delegate votes receive a multiplier (1:1.2), incentivizing users to vote for delegates and thus supporting network governance.
  • Delegate Reward Transparency: Delegates can offer reward-sharing options, displayed to users when they vote, incentivizing users to support delegates over self-voting.

7. Easy Access and Clear Participation Guide:

  • Multiple Access Options: The Lisk website remains the primary access point, with backup voting options in official wallets (desktop and mobile) to ensure reliable access.
  • Clear Voting Guide: An accessible guide on the voting portal explains options (delegate vs. self-voting), eligibility requirements, and important deadlines, ensuring all users understand the voting process.

End-to-End Voting Process Example

  1. Access Voting Platform: Users access the voting portal on the Lisk website (or through exchanges and wallet apps if they prefer).
  2. Verify Ownership: Custodial users are verified by the exchange, while self-custody users sign a message if needed for authentication.
  3. Cast Vote: Users vote for a delegate or directly on the proposal.
  4. Cooling Period and Vote Lock: The system verifies the cooling period and locks the voting power based on the snapshot balance.
  5. Delegate Reward Option (Optional): Users who vote for delegates can view reward-sharing details, if available.

Benefits of This Voting Model

  • Secure and Resilient Voting Portal: DDoS protection, load balancing, and CDN integration ensure stable access to the voting site.
  • Inclusive for All Token Holders: Both self-custody and exchange-held token holders can participate, expanding governance access.
  • Prevention of Voting Manipulation: Eligibility windows and locked voting power make the voting process fair.
  • Decentralized, Transparent, and Incentivized: Weighted delegate voting promotes decentralized governance, while transparency in the voting contract builds trust.

This model ensures a robust, accessible, and secure voting process, making Lisk governance more inclusive and fair while safeguarding against potential disruptions and manipulations.

1 Like
2

Thanks for the improvement proposal!

There are quite a large range of the suggestion, so it’s bit hard to grasp what’s the core of your proposal.
Just to clarify / summarize the what’s mentioned above

  • DAO directly on the Lisk website
  • Backup of the voting method
  • Enable exchange held token holder to vote
  • One vote per holder
  • Snapshot for voting
  • Decentralized voting mechanism
  • Easy access through documentation / more options

are those correct?

From the above,

  • DAO directly on the Lisk website

We are using Tally as DAO UI, and if we want to do ourself, it will require some effort.
If you think it would be valuable, maybe it’s good to have separate proposal with funding request on the DAO?

  • Backup of the voting method

Lisk DAO is onchain voting, so as long as network is alive, it should be possible to vote. To make different ways of interaction, Probably similar to above, I think it would be great to have separate proposal for different UI development.

  • Enable exchange held token holder to vote

This is not something we can do, it’s more on the exchanges because those token are handled by the exchanges.

  • Snapshot for voting

This is already the case.

  • Decentralized voting mechanism

I believe this is already the case. Everything is Onchain

  • Easy access through documentation / more options

I believe there are always improvements, but I think it should be more concrete suggestion what is difficult, and what should be improved. Probably, this could be raised as different thread to discuss what’s unclear in the current process.

Overall, I think it would be great if you can clarify what problems you see in the current problem, and how those solutions solve the problem you see.

3

Yes

It’s harder to create our own voting mechanism than relying on tally but in long term it would be more beneficial because of 2 reasons. 1st it will cost less and second most importantly voting mechanism could be adjustable to our voting rules and needs. It would be much more flexible.

I’m not sure about second voting option but having backup voting is important in case website would fail. Generally we should discuss it to find best solution. As you said as long as network is alive it should be possible.

Yes, we can’t do that but crypto exchanges should agree because it is not something very complicated to inplement from their side. Besides that we could be pioneers in that which could positively impact community and act as a show up how decentralized we wanna be despite having delegates. It could once and for all show others that we are community friendly project.

Yes but if we decide to have voting on lisk website we will have to implement it there as well.

We have decentralized voting mechanism but it is quite complicated to use. Less complicated means more decentralized because more lisk users will be able to participate in voting. Someone can write down as of now what are the steps which lisk user or holder from crypto exchange have to do in order to vote. Believe me it’s not simple for most people.

4

1st it will cost less and second most importantly voting mechanism could be adjustable to our voting rules and needs.

Please note that our current usage of Tally is for free. Therefore, definitely less costs than a custom implementation. Adaptations are also possible on Tally. But these are indeed quite expensive.

I’m not sure about second voting option but having backup voting is important in case website would fail.

We do have a backup voting system for this case. It works via an explorer and is documented here.

5

Exactly what I was thinking about. Web voting = independence, more flexibility and much less costly in long term.

We could use it if website fails. Voting could be synchronized between two options but not necessarily if we decide to vote from beginning if website proposal voting fails.

6

I wanna precise one important thing when it comes to voting from crypto exchanges. They probably won’t agree if it will require sending tokens to vote. The main goal of this idea is to keep your tokens on your wallet when you vote. On lisk website your voting power will be calculated based on your wallet address and token balance. If you withdraw tokens or sell them during voting process your vote will be cancelled.

This way crypto exchanges won’t be involved directly with voting but only act as validators of wallet addresses on which they keep lisk tokens for their customers. For this they will agree with almost 100% chance. It could be done in simple way so crypto exchanges won’t have to even make voting but for example give their users who hold lisk unique ID’s to enter to vote on lisk website or something like that…