#### Ethereum developers use a decentralized poll system for decision-making  

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmSRKG8SCJKDC27X3J7apGewAgtKWGnmRH8AAsGENt83AK/image.png)
Image source: [pixabay - Tumisu](https://pixabay.com/en/vote-poll-election-voting-polling-2042580/)
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While most companies would reply on their CEO to finalize decisions, Ethereum has chosen a decentralized way of decision-making. Together with Dr. Glen Weyl, Vitalik Buterin has been experimenting on quadratic voting, where voting carries weightage and voters could 'buy' stronger votes for issues that concern them more. 

Based on the [Coindesk - Rachel Rose O'Leary](https://www.coindesk.com/experimental-voting-effort-aims-break-ethereum-governance-gridlock/) article, Ethereum coin holders could participate in the voting depending on how much ETH held in their wallets. In a bid to measure community sentiment, votes are measured not in terms of numbers, but by the total amount of ETH placed into the vote. 

> Citizens can use a (possibly artificial) currency to buy votes at the cost of the square of the votes bought on the issues that are most important to them, as mentioned on Buterin and Weyl's blog post.
Source: [Coindesk - Rachel Rose O'Leary](https://www.coindesk.com/experimental-voting-effort-aims-break-ethereum-governance-gridlock/)

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmUvhitXZUukHD6TMfAa2tmA8UaTZumSEZezeuy4Jas6pU/image.png)
Image source: [pixabay - mounsey](https://pixabay.com/en/polling-station-poll-election-day-2643466/)
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**Taking a First Look at the Polls**
Visiting https://www.etherchain.org/coinvote would bring you to the website where coin polls have been proposed by Ethereum's developers. One of the most interesting polls was made on [EIP 999](https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/blob/master/EIPS/eip-999.md), a proposal written by  Parity Technologies developer Afri Schoedon, "to patch the UK-based company’s frozen multi-signature wallet contract library, allowing users to regain access to approximately 513,000 ETH." (source: [CCN - Josiah Wilmoth](https://www.ccn.com/330-million-eip-999-stokes-debate-over-eth-frozen-by-paritys-contract-bug/)).

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQme9h6FnDU2Ji1iKmbGwfpXEpxYbQjsG7peqi2UwVQGFpy/image.png)
Image source: https://www.etherchain.org/coinvote/poll/35 

Rather than letting the community slam Ethereum developers for their decision to implement EIP 999, the ball was thrown back into the community, letting them decide whether to 'burn' the 306,000 ETH in Project Polkadot's wallet. The community voted "No" (55.0%) over "Yes" (39.4%) to this proposal. Read more of the discussion at https://ethereum-magicians.org/t/eip-999-restore-contract-code-at-0x863df6bfa4/130

**Looking Back at Steemit's weighted voting system**
The weighted voting is not the first of its kind as this is a common sight on Steemit. Our vote strength are determined by the amount of vested Steem Power (SP) we have. It definitely gives more power to Steem whales, holding more than 1,000,000 SP. The walk around to get votes is to buy more votes from other users, or from whales. Users can delegate their SP, lending power to other users so they actually vote on their behalf. 

We also have voting bots and vote-sellers who trade off their SP to weigh in using their voting power. While this issue of weighted voting, buying and selling votes has been an ongoing debate, both sides have their argument which are logically sound. Voting bots are regulated with rules only to vote on posts more than 20 minutes old and less than 2 days old. Other rules include blacklists that include spammers and low content quality posts.

I'm glad that we have good services provided by @smartsteem. Do sign up on [smartsteem.com](https://smartsteem.com?r=tysler) if you haven't.     

#### -tysler
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