Governance Research
Studying and enforcing secure electronic voting
Online voting systems are increasingly used for consequential decisions, from decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) governing billions of dollars to large-scale elections. Yet their security rests on assumptions that often fail in practice: classical voting theory largely ignores token-weighted voting, now standard in blockchain governance, while coercion-resistant protocols typically assume in-person registration, which is impractical online.
These research projects address both gaps by developing new frameworks and protocols for measuring decentralization, preserving privacy, and resisting bribery in token-weighted online elections.
Voting Block Entropy (VBE)
Weighted Voting Privacy
A metric for measuring decentralization in DAOs, which captures subtle forms of centralization not reflected in token distribution alone. Our framework leads to both theoretical and empirical tools for the study of decentralization in DAOs.
B-Privacy
Weighted Voting Privacy
A privacy framework for studying the leakage that comes from publishing tallies in token-weighted voting, along with mechanisms to reduce this leakage while preserving transparency.
Cast Iron
Coercion-Resistant Voting
A publicly verifiable, coercion-resistant voting protocol secure under realistic threat models. It enables voters to self-register privately without requiring an online central registration authority.