In this article, you will learn how to vote in a public referendum. For a full rundown of how the governance process works, please see this page.

To unlock your tokens after the enactment period has expired, please refer this article.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Voting on Polkadot-JS UI
• Voting on Polkassembly
• Other Voting Tools
• Discussions

‼️ IMPORTANT

This article describes how to vote on the "Gov1" governance model. This model has been deprecated in Kusama and is being replaced by Polkadot OpenGov in Polkadot.

Visit our article "Polkadot OpenGov: How to Vote" to learn how to vote on Polkadot OpenGov referenda.

Voting on Polkadot-JS UI

1. To submit an on-chain vote in the Polkadot-JS UI, first navigate to the "Governance" > "Democracy" tab.

2. Here, you will see ongoing proposals and referendums. Click the "Vote" button next to the referendum you are interested in.

3. In the next menu, choose the amount of DOT you'd like to vote with, as well as your vote multiplier:

⚠️ ATTENTION

Multiplying your vote is a unique feature in Polkadot governance that allows you to increase your voting power by voluntarily locking up the tokens for a specified amount of time, also known as "conviction voting". You can read more on this here.

4. Next, choose to vote either Aye or Nay. Sign and submit the transaction, and you're all set! You have successfully participated in on-chain governance.

If you're more of a visual learner, you can also watch this tutorial video:

Voting on Polkassembly

You can also vote via the third-party governance discussion platform called Polkassembly. 

1. To vote using Polkassembly, first, you'll need to have an account in the browser extension. 

2. Next, open the referendum you'd like to vote for, click the "Cast Vote" button, and allow the extension to connect to the website :

3. Next, specify the amount of DOT you'd like to vote with, the account you would like to use, and your vote multiplier (note that the Polkassembly UI doesn't specify the number of days that your DOT will be locked for).

4. Click Aye or Nay, sign and submit the transaction, and you're all set! You have successfully participated in on-chain governance.

Other Voting Tools

The community has also built third-party tools for voting, such as:

• Bright Treasury - a treasury governance tool funded by the W3F Grants program
• Litentry App - an upcoming mobile governance app by the Litentry team
• Substrate Telegram bots - a suite of alert bots built by the validator Ryabina
• Kusama Referendum Alert - a governance alert bot built by an anonymous community member.
• Many more are still being built!

Discussions

Announcements and discussions related to governance happen in our Kusama Direction and Polkadot Direction channels on Element. If you are interested in participating in governance, please join the discussions in these channels.