The Democracy Pallet¶

Introduction¶

As a Polkadot parachain, Moonbeam features native on-chain governance thanks to the Substrate democracy pallet. To learn more about governance, such as an overview of related terminology, principles, mechanics, and more, please refer to the Governance on Moonbeam page.

Some of the functionality of the democracy pallet is also available through a democracy precompile. The precompile is a Solidity interface that enables you to perform governance functions using the Ethereum API. Please refer to the Democracy Precompile guide for more information.

This guide will provide an overview of the extrinsics, storage methods, and getters for the pallet constants available in the democracy pallet on Moonbeam.

Democracy Pallet Interface¶

Extrinsics¶

The democracy pallet provides the following extrinsics (functions):

delegate(to, conviction, balance) - delegates the voting power, with some given Conviction, of the sending account to a given account. The balance delegated is locked for as long as it's delegated, and thereafter for the time appropriate for the Conviction's Lock Period. The sending account must be delegating already or have no voting activity. Emits a Delegated event
enactProposal(proposalHash, index) - deprecated as of runtime 2000 - enacts a proposal from a referendum given the proposal hash and the index of the referendum
noteImminentPreimage(encodedProposal) - deprecated as of runtime 2000 - registers a preimage for an upcoming proposal in the dispatch queue given the encoded preimage of a proposal. Emits a PreimageNoted event
notePreimage(encodedProposal) - deprecated as of runtime 2000 - registers a preimage for an upcoming proposal given the encoded preimage of a proposal. This odesn't require the proposal to be in the dispatch queue but does require a deposit that is returned once enacted. Emits a PreimageNoted event. This extrinsic is now accessible through the preimage pallet
propose(proposal, value) - submits a proposal given the proposal and the deposit amount, which must be at least the minimum deposit. Emits a Proposed event. The proposal can be one of three types:
- Legacy - requires a Blake2-256 preimage hash with no preimage length. This type can no longer be created and temporarily exists to support transitioning from legacy state
- Inline - requires a bounded Call. Its encoding must be at most 128 bytes
- Lookup - requires a Blake2-256 preimage hash along with the length of the preimage
reapPreimage(proposalHash, proposalLenUpperBound) - deprecated as of runtime 2000 - removes an expired proposal preimage and collects the deposit. This will only work after the number of blocks in the voting period have passed and if it's the same account that created the preimage is making the call. If it's a different account, then the call must be made after the number of blocks in the enactment period. Emits a PreimageReaped event
removeOtherVote(target, index) - removes a vote for a referendum given the account of the vote to be removed for and the index of the referendum. If the account passed in is the signer, then the functionality is the same as the removeVote function; otherwise the vote must have expired because the voter lost the referendum or the Conviction period is over
removeVote(index) - removes a vote for a referendum given the index of the referendum. The vote can only be removed if the referendum was cancelled, is ongoing, it ended and the vote was in opposition to the result, if there was no Conviction to the account's vote, or if the account made a split vote
second(proposal, secondsUpperBound) - seconds a proposal signaling agreement with the proposal given the index of the proposal and an upper bound on the current number of seconds on the proposal
undelegate() - undelegates the voting power of the sending account. Tokens may be unlocked once an amount of time consistent with the Conviction Lock Period has been passed. Emits an Undelegated event
unlock(target) - unlocks tokens that have an expired lock given the account to remove the lock on
vote(refIndex, vote) - vote in a referendum given the index of the referendum, the vote, Conviction, and amount of tokens to lock. If the vote is an "Aye", the vote is to enact the proposal; otherwise the vote is to not approve the proposal

Some of the extrinsics in the democracy pallet are subject to votes of the Technical Committee or Council:

cancelProposal(propIndex) - removes a proposal given the index of the proposal to cancel. Cancellations are in the hands of the Root account or if 3/5th of the Technical Committee vote to cancel the proposal
emergencyCancel(refIndex) - schedules an emergency cancellation of a referendum given the index of the referendum to cancel. Emergency cancellations are in the hands of the Root account or if 3/5th of the Council vote to cancel the referendum
externalPropose(proposal) - schedules a referendum to be brought to a vote once it is legal to schedule an external referendum given a proposal hash. If at least 1/2 of the Council vote in approval the referendum will be tabled next. Please refer to the three types of proposals, in the propose extrinsic description above
externalProposeDefault(proposal) - schedules a negative-turnout-bias referendum to be brought to a vote next once it is legal to schedule an external referendum given the preimage hash of a proposal. If at least 3/5th of the Council vote in approval the referendum will be tabled next. Please refer to the three types of proposals, in the propose extrinsic description above
externalProposeMajority(proposal) - schedules a majority-carries referendum to be brought to a vote next once it is legal to schedule an external referendum given the preimage hash of a proposal. If at least 3/5th of the Council vote in approval the referendum will be tabled next. Please refer to the three types of proposals, in the propose extrinsic description above
fastTrack(proposalHash, votingPeriod, delay) - schedules a currently externally-proposed majority-carries referendum to be brought to a vote immediately given the proposal hash, the period allowed for voting on the proposal, and the number of blocks after an approval and it is enacted. If there is no externally-proposed referendum currently, or if there is one but it is not a majority-carries referendum then it fails. If at least 1/2 of the Technical Committee vote in approval the referendum will be tabled immediately
noteImminentPreimageOperational(encodedProposal) - registers a preimage for an upcoming proposal in the dispatch queue given the encoded preimage of a proposal. Emits a PreimageNoted event. Must be called by a member of the Council
notePreimageOperational(encodedProposal) - registers a preimage for an upcoming proposal given the encoded preimage of a proposal. This odesn't require the proposal to be in the dispatch queue but does require a deposit that is returned once enacted. Emits a PreimageNoted event. Must be called by a member of the Council
vetoExternal(proposalHash) - vetoes and blacklists a proposal given the preimage hash of the proposal. Emits a Vetoed event. Must be called by a member of the Technical Committee and can only be called one time and it only lasts for the cooloff period

There are also some extrinsics in the democracy pallet that can only be dispatched by the root account:

blacklist(proposalHash, maybeRefIndex) - permanently places a proposal given a proposal hash into the blacklist which prevents it from ever being proposed again. If called on a queued public or external proposal, then this will result in it being removed. If the maybeRefIndex supplied is an active referendum that corresponds to the proposal hash, the proposal will be cancelled
cancelQueued(which) - deprecated as of runtime 2000 - cancels a proposal queued for enactment given the index of the referendum to cancel
cancelReferendum(refIndex) - removes a referendum given the index of the referendum to cancel
clearPublicProposals() - clears all public proposals

Storage Methods¶

The democracy pallet includes the following read-only storage methods to obtain chain state data:

blacklist(H256) - returns a record of who vetoed what, or if a proposal hash has been provided it returns information about the specific proposal that was blacklisted or none if the proposal wasn't blacklisted
cancellations(H256) - returns a record of all proposals that have been subject to emergency cancellation, or if a proposal hash has been provided it returns a boolean indicating whether or not the proposal has been cancelled
depositOf(u32) - returns a record of those who have locked a deposit behind proposals, or if given a proposal index it provides information for the specific proposal
lastTabledWasExternal() - returns true if the last referendum tabled was submitted externally, and returns false if it was a public proposal
lowestUnbaked() - returns the lowest referendum index that corresponds to an unbaked referendum
nextExternal() - returns the next referendum to be brought to a vote for whenever it would be valid to vote on an external proposal
palletVersion() - returns the current pallet version
preimages(H256) - deprecated as of runtime 2000 - this storage item is now accessible through the preimage pallet
publicPropCount() - returns the number of public proposals that have been made so far
publicProps() - returns a record of the public proposals
referendumCount() - returns the number of referenda started so far
referendumInfoOf() - returns information for a referendum given the referendum's index
votingOf(AccountId20) - returns a record of all of the votes for a particular voter given the address of the voter

Pallet Constants¶

The democracy pallet includes the following read-only functions to obtain pallet constants:

cooloffPeriod() - returns the period in blocks where an external proposal may not be re-submitted after being vetoed
enactmentPeriod() - returns the period between a proposal being approved and enacted
fastTrackVotingPeriod() - returns the minimum voting period allowed for a fast-track referendum
instantAllowed() - returns a boolean indicating whether an emergency origin is even allowed to happen
launchPeriod() - returns how often (in blocks) new public referenda are launched
maxProposals() - returns the maximum number of public proposals that can exist at any time
maxBlacklisted() - returns the maximum number of items which can be blacklisted
maxDeposits() - returns the maximum number of deposits a public proposal may have at any time
maxVotes() - returns the maximum number of votes for an account
minimumDeposit() - returns the minimum amount to be used as a deposit for a public referendum proposal
preimageByteDeposit() - deprecated as of runtime 2000 - returns the amount of balance that must be deposited per byte of preimage stored
voteLockingPeriod() - returns the minimum period of vote locking
votingPeriod() - returns how often (in blocks) to check for new votes

Last update: March 27, 2023
| Created: July 9, 2022