Stakeholder Quorums and Role-Weighted Voting

Encoding Institutional Power, Risk Domain Expertise, and Equitable Influence in DAO Decision-Making

6.2.1 Why Quorum Logic Matters in NSF Governance

NSF DAOs govern:

• Clause validity

• Credential lifecycle

• Simulation acceptance

• Dispute resolution

• Treaty execution

These responsibilities span multilateral institutions, sovereign states, academic validators, civil society agents, and frontline operators.

To ensure trustworthy, representative, and context-aware governance, each DAO in NSF operates under a customizable quorum and voting model—backed by credentials and anchored to roles.

This moves NSF governance beyond 1-token-1-vote into a model of role-weighted, permissioned, and auditable participation.

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6.2.2 Quorum Definition in NSF

A quorum defines:

• The minimum participation required to enact a DAO decision

• The minimum diversity or jurisdictional scope required (e.g., 3 continents)

• Weighting functions for vote power (e.g., per role, stake, credential, or trust score)

• Timeout windows for asynchronous, multilateral votes

Example:

"quorum_policy": {
  "minimum_participants": 7,
  "role_classes_required": ["SimulationExpert", "PublicHealthDAO", "DAOAuditor"],
  "jurisdictional_diversity": ">=3",
  "voting_window": "72h"
}

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6.2.3 Role-Based Voting Eligibility

Only participants with valid Verifiable Credentials (VCs) can vote in NSF DAOs.

Each role is credential-defined:

• TreatyDelegateVC

• DisasterCoordinatorVC

• SimulationAuditorVC

• DAOAuditorVC

• PublicWitnessVC

These roles can be scoped by:

• Jurisdiction

• Domain (e.g., climate, finance, health)

• Clause family (e.g., only for FloodRelief@* clauses)

Credential oracles verify:

• Credential validity

• Revocation status

• Clause compatibility

• Role satisfaction for a given proposal

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6.2.4 Voting Weights and Role Multipliers

DAO participants vote using role-weighted logic, e.g.:

Role	Weight Multiplier
Simulation Model Certifier	2.0x
DAO Auditor	1.5x
Treaty Delegate (non-veto)	1.2x
Citizen Witness	1.0x
Credential Issuer	0.75x

Each DAO defines its own role_weight_map, enforced via governance smart contracts and clause bindings.

These weights can be static or dynamic (e.g., increased if the role was active in the past 30 days).

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6.2.5 Vote Mechanics and Outcomes

Votes may follow:

Mechanism	Description
Simple Majority	More than 50% of total weighted votes
Supermajority	> 67% required for critical decisions
Quadratic Voting	Reduces dominance of large stakeholders
Reputation-based Voting	Weight tied to prior audit score or successful clause outcomes
Zero-knowledge Voting	Privacy-preserving ballots validated via ZK-SNARKs
Time-decaying Influence	Reduces voting weight if a role is idle

Each vote is cryptographically signed, logged, and rolled up with verifiable quorum proofs for audit.

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6.2.6 Delegated Voting and Credential Escrow

DAO members may:

• Delegate their vote via multisig or DelegateCredentialVC

• Escrow their credential for temporary voting authority

• Assign dynamic thresholds (e.g., "only vote YES if simulation forecast > 0.85 risk class")

All delegations are:

• Logged in the Audit Layer

• Time-limited and revocable

• Compatible with ZK-based vote attestations

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6.2.7 Quorum Failure and Fallback Triggers

If a quorum is not reached within a vote window:

• The proposal is:

  • Deferred

  • Escalated to an AppealsDAO

  • Resolved by default governance logic (if pre-defined in the clause)

• Fallback logic can be encoded:

"fallback": {
  "if_no_quorum": "revert_to_previous_state",
  "timeout_action": "require public consultation"
}

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6.2.8 Transparent Governance via Voting Audit Trails

Each DAO vote produces:

• Credential audit list (who voted, with what credentials)

• Weighted tally report

• Quorum composition breakdown

• Outcome hash

• Clause/CAC references

Audit logs are queryable:

show all ClimateSimDAO votes in Q2-2025 with failed quorum

DAO dashboards visualize quorum dynamics, jurisdictional participation, and governance trends.

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6.2.9 Anti-Capture and Role Rotation Protocols

To prevent DAO capture:

• Voting roles expire or require re-credentialing

• Role multipliers decay over time without participation

• Watchdog roles (DAOAuditorVC) can challenge proposals

• Clause-defined safeguards (e.g., public quorum challenge) can freeze DAO actions

This ensures adaptive accountability and institutional decentralization.

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6.2.10 NSF Governance = Role-Verified, Clause-Bound Institutional Legitimacy

NSF’s quorum and voting architecture turns DAOs into:

• Verifiable institutions

• Embedded policy engines

• Decentralized yet composable treaty agents

With each vote:

• Backed by cryptographic credentials

• Weighted by role, not capital

• Logged with auditable traceability

• Bound to clauses and execution outcomes

The result: governance that is programmed, principled, and provable.