K ♦ · Consensus · Draft
Quadratic Voting
Votes cost the square of their number, so members can show how strongly they care, not just which side.
How it works
Each member receives the same budget of voice credits, or a budget set by their token balance. A member spends credits to cast votes on any option: one vote costs 1 credit, two votes cost 4, three cost 9. The cost is always the square of the votes cast. Spreading credits across several options is cheap, while piling them onto one option gets expensive fast. When voting closes, the DAO counts votes, not credits, and the option with the most votes wins. The result reflects how strongly members care, not only how many care.
Use it when
- You want to measure intensity of preference, not just headcount.
- Protect minorities who care deeply about one issue from an indifferent majority.
- Allocate a budget across many items in one ballot.
Watch out for
- Sybil attacks: splitting tokens across many wallets multiplies voting power, so identity checks are needed.
- Members can collude, pooling credits on each other's proposals.
Example
Colorado Legislature. In 2019, the Colorado House Democratic caucus used quadratic voting to rank over 100 spending bills, giving each legislator 100 credits to spend across them.