DAO Discussion: Vote Buying Services

[karpatkey]

Vote-buying is indeed an interesting and complex topic, and due to its controversial nature, it must be openly discussed.

To directly respond to the question posed:

@Arbitrum

Should the ArbitrumDAO permit people to explicitly purchase, and compete to purchase, votes?

Although banning vote-buying entirely is challenging due to inevitable workarounds, the practice contradicts the Arbitrum DAO’s established code of conduct in some circumstances. Specifically, it conflicts with existing policies such as:

@Entropy

Strict Self-Voting Policy: In the event of a conflict of interest, under the simple definitions stated in the Rationale above, it is expected that a delegate or proposal author abstains during the voting process.

and

@Entropy

“Responsible Voting” Policy in Elections: In an election with multiple seats, candidates may vote for themselves as long as they also cast votes to fill the remaining positions. Put more simply, a candidate should not cast a vote solely for themselves in an election. In the case of a weighted voting election, the candidate’s weight for themself should not be larger than the weights for other candidates. To the best of their ability they should strive to make the weights as equal as possible among the number of candidates necessary to fill each position.

The ethical underpinning of these policies clearly aims to ensure fairness and impartiality in voting processes. Given this intent, we argue that vote-buying should be treated similarly to self-voting, particularly in elections. We propose explicitly updating our code of conduct to include rules around vote-buying, specifically:

1. Delegates should avoid vote-buying if it creates a conflict of interest.
2. Delegates engaged in vote-buying must not solely vote for themselves; votes should be evenly weighted among multiple candidates to reflect a fair and balanced election, as mentioned by JoJo:

@JoJo

if I buy the vote for myself, i should vote it in the same way i do it with my own delegated token. I can disclose I bought it, and that I voted myself, X and Y in an equal weight manner as per CoC.

This stance clearly signals that existing delegation rules apply equally to purchased votes, promoting transparency and fairness.

In the longer term, the fundamental issue may not be vote-buying itself but rather the disproportionate influence held by entities like LobbyFi, currently the largest delegate in the DAO with nearly 20M votes. As JoJo highlighted:

@JoJo

Our goal should be for lobbigy, at 20-30-40M votes, to be a not so decisive part of active voters because we increase what delegates have.

We strongly agree. Addressing vote-buying directly is necessary in the short term, but enhancing overall delegate engagement and voting power remains the sustainable long-term solution.