Breaking Down the BET DPOS Borda Count Voting Method Introduced by BOSCore
BOSCore community launched the BOSCore network in January and ever since then, the network has experienced incredible advancements. From Inter-blockchain Communication to 3 Seconds LIB, BOSCore has proven to be the most advanced EOS.IO based public blockchain in terms of technology. With the recent proposal to introduce the Borda Count Electoral System to the forthcoming BET elections scheduled for January 2020, BOSCore proves that it is not only an innovative pacesetter in tech but also in governance.
One of the problems in EOS.IO and DPOS today is vote-trading which may ultimately lead to centralisation of power in the hands of a few entities. Can the Borda Count Voting system proposed by BET solve the governance problems in the EOS.IO ecosystem?
BET(BOSCore Executive Team) is a group of EOSIO community members who work on the community operation for BOSCore. The main function of BET is to facilitate the global promotion of BOSCore. They recently proposed a new voting system for BET elections scheduled for January 2020. According to the proposal which can be found in the BOS Worker Proposal Website, BOSCore BET will have the following structure:
- The BOSCore BET will be comprised of a maximum of 25 members.
- A majority decision is one that requires the approval and support of more than half of BET members.
- A minority decision is one that requires the approval and support of more than one-third of the BET members.
- BET members cannot delegate their membership
- Upon being elected to office, the BET the Chairpersons and BET members must sign an on-chain BET Members Code of Ethics.
The proposal went further to describe the DPOS Borda Count method, a consensus solution that could be an improvement on the current method of voting on EOS.IO and DPOS Blockchains.
What is Borda Count?
The Borda count is a type of electoral method that is intended to elect broadly-acceptable options or candidates, rather than those preferred by a majority. It is therefore often described as a consensus-based voting system rather than a majoritarian one.
In this system, having the majority vote alone will not guarantee that a candidate would win an election. The candidate who would win needs to be able to gather support from a broad category of people. The Borda count is more inclusive and favourable for the minority population and it can promote unity and avoid ‘tyranny of the majority’,
Breaking Down the BET DPoS Borda Count Voting Method
BET DPoS Borda Count Voting Plan, is based upon the Borda count system, where votes are placed by selection on a fixed number of candidates ranked by preference. The aim is to introduce a “Fair” voting system for the selection of BET.
In the BET DPOS Borda count method, voters give varying vote weights to BET candidates based on their preference. BET consists of 25 members. Each voter can only vote for 25 candidates. The voters would rank these 25 candidates from 1st to 25th choices. So assuming a voter is giving points to the BET candidates, the first choice candidate will receive 25 points, the second choice candidate will receive 24 points, the third choice candidate will receive 23 points, the fourth choice candidate will receive 22 points, the fifth choice candidate will receive 21 points and so on. The least preferred candidate, which is the 25th choice candidate will receive 1 point. However, voters would not be giving points to BET candidates in the DPOS Borda count method, they would be using their BOS tokens to vote, assigning varying vote weights to candidates based on preference.
Explaining the Vote Weight of a Voter in the BET DPOS Borda Count Method
A voter would be able to vote as follows in the BET DPOS Borda Count Method. The first candidate would receive the voter’s full vote weight and the other candidates would receive a decreasing amount of the vote weight. The vote weight the other candidates would receive can be calculated with the following mathematical formula:
Relative Vote Weight = [(n+1-i)/n]T.
Where ‘n’ is the total number of candidates, ‘i’ is the ordinal position of the candidate in the rank, ‘T’ is the voter's staked tokens and ‘n+1' is 26.
- 1st Choice [(26–1)/25]T=[25/25]T
- 2nd Choice [(26–2)/25]T=[24/25]T
- 3rd Choice [(26-3)/n]T=[23/25]T
- 4th Choice [(26-4)/n]T=[22/25]T
- …
- 25th Choice [(26–25)/n]T=[1/25]T
As seen from the above, the first choice candidate receives the full vote weight, the second choice candidate receives 24/25 of the vote weight and so on. The least preferred candidate receives 1/25 of the voter’s full vote weight.
Let's use a scenario where 100 candidates applied to be BET members. Sam is a member of the BOSCore Community who has 2,000 BOS tokens to vote for BET members.
According to the BET DPOS Borda Count method, Sam can vote for only 25 BET candidates. Of the 25 candidates, only 1 of them will receive the full weight of Sam’s 2,000 BOS Tokens. The other candidates will receive a fraction of weight of Sam’s vote using the formula:
Relative Vote Weight : [(n+1-i)/n]T.
In this example, ‘T’(voter’s staked tokens) is 2,000; ‘n’ is 25; ‘n+1’ is 26.
- 1st Choice [(26–1)/25]T=[25/25]2000= 1×2,000= 2,000
- 2nd Choice [(26–2)/25]T=[24/25]2000= 0.96×2,000= 1,920
- 3rd Choice [(26–3)/n]T=[23/25]2000= 0.92×2,000= 1,840
- 4th Choice [(26–4)/n]T=[22/25]2000=0.88×2,000= 1,760
- …
- 25th Choice [(26–25)/n]T=[1/25]2000= 0.04×2,000= 80
As seen from the above description, the first choice receives the full vote weight of 2,000 tokens, the second candidate receives a vote weight of 1,920, the third candidate receives a vote weight of 1,840, the fourth candidate receives a vote weight of 1,760, and so on. The 25th candidate which is least preferred receives a vote weight of just 80 tokens.
This is just a simplified explanation of the vote weight distribution in BET DPOS Borda Count Method by BOSCore. A more technical explanation of this concept can be found here.
