# Approval-Based Committee Voting in Practice: A Case Study of (Over-)Representation in the Polkadot Blockchain

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.11408 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.11408/

## Key facts

- Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 18 Dec 2023.

## Built on by (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [Strengthening Proportionality in Temporal Voting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.22513/) (2025)
- [Polynomial-Time Algorithm for Thiele Voting Rules with Voter Interval Preferences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.05953/) (2026)
- [Computing Thiele Rules on Interval Elections and their Generalizations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.03067/) (2026)
- [Fairness in the Multi-Secretary Problem](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.23097/) (2025)
- [Agreement, Diversity, and Polarization Indices for Approval Elections](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.14983/) (2026)
- [Algorithms for Structured Elections under Thiele Voting Rules](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.28575/) (2026)
- [Reverse Sequential Proportional Approval Voting Rule: Proportionality and Approximation Guarantees](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.35331/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We provide the first large-scale data collection of real-world approval-based committee elections. These elections have been conducted on the Polkadot blockchain as part of their Nominated Proof-of-Stake mechanism and contain around one thousand candidates and tens of thousands of (weighted) voters each. We conduct an in-depth study of application-relevant questions, including a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the outcomes returned by different voting rules. Besides considering proportionality measures that are standard in the multiwinner voting literature, we pay particular attention to less-studied measures of overrepresentation, as these are closely related to the security of the Polkadot network. We also analyze how different design decisions such as the committee size affect the examined measures.