Who votes on Cardano governance
The three bodies that vote on Cardano governance actions, DReps, stake pools and the Constitutional Committee, and which of them votes on what.
DReps
Delegated representatives. ADA holders delegate their voting power to a DRep, who votes on their behalf on every kind of governance action. A DRep’s vote weighs as much as the ADA delegated to them.
Stake pools
Stake pool operators run the nodes that produce Cardano’s blocks. They vote on actions that touch how the network runs: hard forks, the security-critical protocol parameters, and who sits on the Constitutional Committee. They can also answer polls. A pool’s vote weighs as much as the stake delegated to it.
Constitutional Committee
A small committee with one job: checking that a governance action is consistent with the Cardano Constitution. Each member has one vote. The committee does not judge whether a proposal is a good idea, only whether it is allowed.
Kinds of governance action
- Info action
- A poll. It records opinion on chain and changes nothing.
- Treasury withdrawal
- Pays ADA out of the Cardano treasury.
- Protocol parameter change
- Changes settings such as fees, block size or governance deposits.
- Hard fork
- Moves the network to a new protocol version.
- New constitution
- Replaces the Constitution or its guardrails script.
- Committee update
- Changes the Constitutional Committee’s members, terms or quorum.
- Motion of no confidence
- Removes the sitting Constitutional Committee.