How to Vote in Governance Referenda Print
Modified on: Fri, 11 Mar, 2022 at 5:01 AM
In this article, you will learn how to vote in a public referendum. For a full rundown on how the governance process works, please see this page.
To unlock your tokens after the enactment period has expired, please refer to Step 3 in this article.
Voting on referenda can be accomplished in a few different ways.
Polkadot-JS UI
1. To submit an on-chain vote in the Polkadot-JS UI, first navigate to the Governance --> Democracy tab here.
2. Here you will see ongoing proposals and referendums. To vote Aye or Nay, click the vote button.
3. In the next menu, choose the amount of DOT you'd like to vote with, as well as your vote multiplier.
NOTE: 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.
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 Vote button, and allow the extension to connect to the website :
3. Next, specify the amount of DOT you'd like to vote with, as well as your vote multiplier (note that the Polkassembly UI doesn't specify the amount 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 which 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.
Did you find it helpful? Yes No
Send feedback