AIP-288: Adopt Shielded Snapshot Voting for Elections and AIP's

Final AIPs Rejected AIPs
1

Proposal Name:

Adopt Shielded Snapshot Voting for Elections and AIP’s

Proposal Category:

Process

Abstract | Two or three sentences that summarize the proposal.

Engagement is diminished and voices silenced, with potential for corruption greatly increased, when voting identities are visible during a live vote. Shielded voting is a right everyone should have, and the proper way to go.

Author Description (mandatory if the AIP is requesting funds) | A brief background of yourself

A rando Ape taking initiative on something that is crucial to privacy, fair elections and reducing gaming of votes and harassment of voters.

Motivation | A statement on why the APE Community should implement the proposal.

IRL elections are problematic and pandering enough, and we’ve copied those yet with the added risks associated with votes being publicly visible during a live vote.

Vote total for the Abstain option was recently hidden during live voting by arbitrary Special Council action with the stated reasoning (related publicly on this Forum by a then-WG0 Steward after I repeatedly questioned it, since SC does not publish its activities or reasons for making such decisions) that it was done “to optimize for security, usability, to protect APE holders…” because leaving Abstain vote tallies visible during live voting was believed by some to be influencing how people were voting.

If that was true for Abstain then it is self-evidently true for any vote tallies, especially for elections, so passing this AIP would allow “shielded” voting going forward.

Also voters are often contacted during a voting period on why they’ve voted a certain way, or to change their votes. “How can I earn your vote?” “How can I get you to change your vote?” Some don’t like the violation, and it opens up yet another easy vector to corruption and gaming of votes.

Rationale | An explanation of how the proposal aligns with the APE Community’s mission and guiding values.

We don’t yet have an approved Mission, but presumably the $APE Community’s values include making gaming or corrupting the voting system a little less easy.

Key Terms (optional) | Definitions of any terms within the proposal that are unique to the proposal, new to the APE Community, and/or industry-specific.

Shielded Voting (copied & pasted from Snapshot.org):

“You can enable Shielded Voting within your space if you want to enable partial privacy and reduce voter apathy. […] Shielded Voting is a voting setting in which the voters choices are private during the voting period and get revealed when the proposal closes.”

Specifications | A detailed breakdown of the platforms and technologies that will be used.

Snapshot. At some point it recently instituted a shielded voting option.

Steps to Implement | The steps to implement the proposal, including associated costs, manpower, and other resources for each step where applicable.

Update the DAO’s voting system on Snapshot.

Timeline | Relevant timing details, including but not limited to start date, milestones, and completion dates.

This can be implemented as soon as the vote is passed.

Overall Cost | The total cost to implement the proposal.

Zero.

Proposals submitted to the AIP Ideas category can be vague, incomplete ideas. Topics submitted here are not required to be submitted as a formal AIP Draft Template, however, you may still use the template if you wish.

4 Likes
3

Don’t see why anyone shouldn’t have the option to vote anonymously

7 Likes
4

I totally agree with this, we should be able to do it anonymously

3 Likes
5

Agreed. Votes are meant to be anonymous.

2 Likes
6

At the very least we can try it for a short period (maybe a month), then vote to keep or extend. That could be something that makes this proposal easier to pass, if you wanted to word it that way. Just speculation, tho.

6 Likes
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I am open to us trying this out as a DAO. I notice people sometimes use personal relationships in their favor to try to pass AIPs-- when the focus should always be the merit of the idea, realistic budget, and if it’s purpose serves the DAO.

We can always vote to undo this later if it turns out the DAO isn’t vibing with it anyways. No harm in giving it a try :pray:

10 Likes
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Asking for support to pass a AIP is normal. Actually convincing someone is an important skill which relates to if you can pull off the idea, especially if business related.

That is a separate point to voting anonymously.

9

I think this makes a lot of sense. Also just to be clear, generally shielded voting means, you vote anonymously only until the end of the vote. Then the votes are revealed. So this is not really full “anonymous voting”. Personally I think this is the best of both worlds - you allow people to vote how they truly feel rather than going with the crowd, or opening them up to harassment to change vote. And in the end your votes get revealed to keep things transparent.

win-win

3 Likes
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While anonymous voting can provide certain benefits, it can also pose challenges in terms of accountability and transparency.

1 Like
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IMO that marketing should be happening prior to voting, not when someone has already formed an opinion on the information provided and voted.

And if it fails they should re-review their AIP, get additional feedback, and then resubmit.

I understand the focus of this being on the ‘gamifying election votes’ and agree with that, but wanted to add another layer from my own personal experience that I feel this type of voting also helps to alleviate. Social pressure from voting is a challenge the DAO faces if you hold a large amount of votes.

6 Likes
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yes for me it’s logic that votes should be anonymously

2 Likes
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Thanks everyone for feedback.

I’ve made slight changes to AIP.

  1. Removed the word ”anonymous” to prevent confusion.

  2. Added definition of “shielded voting”. Shielded Voting (copied & pasted from Snapshot.org): “You can enable Shielded Voting within your space if you want to enable partial privacy and reduce voter apathy. […] Shielded Voting is a voting setting in which the voters choices are private during the voting period and get revealed when the proposal closes.”

  3. Changed “preventing gaming of votes and harassing of voters” to “reducing gaming of votes and harassing of voters”.

7 Likes
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I’ve always liked being able to have the ability to reach out to voters. Having said that, we certainly dont want social pressure or vote shaming to rise or spamming. It could be a good idea to adopt shielded voting. Voters big and small should feel comfortable always, and again, spam may be on the rise too.

6 Likes
15

Support this idea with these clarifications. Thanks for putting it forth @br00no!

BT

4 Likes
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Hi Br00no,

I love this idea, or at least I’d love to trial it out, collect data and then try to compare to previous results (legacy option) vs the current method.

I think we have to start experimenting more with new ways to do the voting, all aspects.

Sometimes I feel a certain pressure at voting time, maybe my own doing, and why maybe some often consider using an unrelated account to their name or refuse to vote on their mains?

I think voters often just go - who did PPman (for example) vote for or on, and they just do the same.

I know this will not stop the backroom deals and agreements that are possible, but imo it certainly encourages the voter to read for themselves and maybe even delegate their votes if they realise they don’t want to fully participate correctly.

Tl;dr - I’d love to see this implemented and see if we can compare to older results and either justify its continuation or prove the legacy method works best - we can only do this by testing this idea irl.

3 Likes
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Thanks FA.

How do we prove “best”? It seems self evident that shielded voting mitigates and makes much more difficult some forms of harassment, negative / unproductive types of attention, corruption and influence peddling.

No?

2 Likes
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Hi @br00no,

Your topic will be moving to the AIP Draft phase in less than 24 hours. Are you content with the feedback received or do you wish to extend community discussion for another 7 days?

If we do not hear from you within 48 hours after your topic closes, your topic will be moved straight to the AIP Draft process.

We look forward to hearing from you.

-Chris

1 Like
19

Content, thanks. Move-on!

2 Likes
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This topic was automatically closed after 7 days. New replies are no longer allowed.

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Hi @br00no,

Thank you for your ideas [and the ApeCoin DAO community for the thoughtful discussions]. A moderator will get in touch with the author to draft the AIP in the appropriate template. Once the AIP is drafted and meets all the DAO-approved guidelines, the proposal will be posted on Snapshot for live official voting at: Snapshot

Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments. @br00no please see your messages for the next steps.

-Chris

1 Like