Plurality Voting vs Ranked-Choice Voting

For simple, high-turnout governance: Best for binary or single-choice proposals with a large, engaged electorate. Its simplicity (pick one option) minimizes voter confusion and gas costs. This matters for high-frequency, low-stakes decisions in DAOs like Uniswap or Compound.

When facing vote-splitting (spoiler effect): A candidate/option with broad, moderate support can lose to a niche option with intense support, leading to unrepresentative outcomes. This is critical to avoid in elections with more than two serious contenders, as seen in early MakerDAO polls.

For consensus-building and multi-option races: Ensures the winner has majority support by eliminating losers and redistributing votes. Prevents the spoiler effect and better captures voter intent. Essential for high-stakes, contentious decisions like treasury allocations or protocol upgrades in Optimism's Citizen House.

When gas costs or complexity are primary constraints: Requires more on-chain computation to tally results and more voter deliberation to rank choices. This can suppress participation in large, casual communities or on high-fee networks like Ethereum Mainnet for small proposals.

One-choice, one-vote mechanics enable rapid proposal execution. This matters for high-frequency DAOs like Uniswap or Compound, where fast parameter updates (e.g., fee switches) are critical. Implementation is straightforward with tools like Snapshot or OpenZeppelin Governor, reducing development overhead.

'Spoiler effect' risk where similar proposals split the vote, allowing a minority preference to win. This is critical for contentious forks or treasury allocations, as seen in early Aragon votes. Without mechanisms like quadratic voting or delegation, outcomes may not reflect broad consensus.

Majority-rule compliance ensures the candidate preferred over all others wins, capturing nuanced community sentiment. This matters for protocol upgrades (e.g., Ethereum EIPs) or grant fund allocations (Gitcoin), where finding the most broadly acceptable option is paramount. Implementations use commit-reveal schemes or zk-proofs for privacy.

Multi-round tallying logic increases gas costs and smart contract complexity. This is a trade-off for large-scale DAOs like Maker or Arbitrum, where each voting transaction must be optimized. Requires more sophisticated voter education and interfaces (e.g., Tally) to prevent invalid ballots.

Low cognitive load: Voters select one candidate. This leads to faster ballot counting and easier implementation, as seen in traditional systems like the UK's First-Past-the-Post. This matters for high-turnout, low-engagement elections where minimizing voter confusion and tabulation cost is critical.

Direct winner-takes-all outcome: The candidate with the most votes wins, providing a clear, decisive result. This matters for executive elections (e.g., mayoral races) where a single, accountable leader is required and coalition-building is less desirable.

Vote splitting risk: Similar candidates can split the vote, allowing a less popular candidate to win (e.g., the 2000 US Presidential election). This leads to strategic voting and disenfranchises supporters of non-leading candidates. This is a critical flaw in multi-candidate fields.

Binary choice limitation: Voters cannot express preference order, forcing an "all-or-nothing" decision. This fails to capture the true spectrum of voter sentiment and can result in winners disliked by a majority. This matters for community governance (e.g., DAO proposals) where consensus is valued.

Instant-runoff mechanism: Ensures the winner has broad support (50%+). If no majority, lower-ranked candidates are eliminated and votes redistributed. This eliminates the spoiler effect, as seen in NYC's mayoral elections. This matters for primary elections and DAO treasury votes where consensus legitimacy is paramount.

Preference ranking: Voters can support their favorite candidate without fear of wasting their vote, as they can indicate a backup choice. This encourages positive campaigning and more candidate diversity. This matters for protocol parameter upgrades and grant committee elections where nuanced preferences are key.

Higher barrier to entry: Voter education is required to explain ranking. Tabulation is more complex and can delay results, increasing administrative costs. Jurisdictions like Maine faced legal challenges during implementation. This matters for large-scale public elections with budget constraints.

Counter-intuitive outcomes: In rare cases, ranking a candidate higher can cause them to lose, or ranking them lower can help them win. This violates a core principle of voting fairness and can undermine trust. This is a theoretical but debated flaw in closely contested, multi-round elections.