Quorum is the minimum amount of voting power that must participate in a governance vote for the result to be valid. If quorum is not reached, the proposal fails regardless of the approval ratio. A vote where 100% of participants approve still fails if only 2% of token supply voted and quorum is set at 5%. Quorum prevents tiny minorities from making binding decisions for the entire community.
What Is Quorum (In DAO Voting)?
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The short version
Quorum is the minimum turnout for a vote to count. If a school board says "we need at least 100 parents at the meeting for any vote to be binding," that is quorum. In a DAO, quorum is usually a percentage of total token supply or voting power. Below that threshold, no decision can pass, no matter how one-sided the vote.
How It Works
How it works: the Governor contract checks two conditions for a proposal to pass: (1) enough total votes were cast to meet quorum (e.g., 4% of total supply for Uniswap, ~40M UNI), and (2) the For votes exceed the Against votes by the required margin (usually simple majority). Quorum types: absolute quorum (fixed number of tokens must vote), relative quorum (percentage of circulating supply), and "against quorum" (only counting Against votes toward quorum, used by some protocols to make passing easier when there is no opposition). Setting quorum is a governance design tradeoff: too high and proposals routinely fail from apathy (voter fatigue). Too low and a small group can push through changes that the broader community would oppose if they were paying attention. Most major DAOs land between 3-10% of token supply as quorum.
A proposal failing despite 95% approval
Uniswap governance proposal #42 seeks to deploy Uniswap on a new L2 chain. Quorum requirement: 40M UNI (approximately 4% of 1B total supply). Voting ends with: 12M UNI For (95%), 600K UNI Against (5%). Despite near-unanimous approval among voters, total participation was only 12.6M UNI, well below the 40M quorum. Proposal fails. It is brought back two weeks later with a delegation campaign. Second attempt: 55M UNI For, 8M Against. Quorum met (63M total > 40M required). Approval at 87%. Proposal passes. The first failure was not about disagreement but about insufficient participation.
What People Get Wrong
Quorum means majority approval
Quorum and approval are separate requirements. Quorum = enough people participated. Approval = of those who participated, enough voted yes. Both must be met. You can have high quorum with low approval (fails) or high approval with low quorum (also fails).
Not reaching quorum means the community rejected the proposal
It usually means the community did not show up, not that they actively opposed it. Voter apathy and "governance fatigue" are the most common reasons for missed quorum, especially on non-controversial proposals that people do not feel strongly enough about to vote on.
Quorum should be set as high as possible for safety
Very high quorum can make governance non-functional if voter participation is naturally low (which it almost always is in DAOs). A protocol where no proposal can ever reach quorum is effectively ungovernable, which can be worse than having a low quorum threshold.
Keep Reading
Sources & Further Reading
- Tally Governance Docs
Technical documentation on quorum, thresholds, and voting mechanics
Questions People Also Ask
- What is a typical quorum percentage?
- Most major DAOs set quorum at 3-10% of token supply. Uniswap: 4%. Compound: ~4%. Aave: varies by proposal type (short executor: 2%, long executor: 6.5%). Lower quorum makes governance more active but less representative.
- Can quorum be changed?
- Yes, through a governance vote (meta-governance). Changing quorum itself requires meeting the current quorum, which can create a catch-22 if quorum is set too high and participation has dropped below it. Some protocols use tiered quorum depending on proposal impact.
- What is delegation and how does it help quorum?
- Delegation lets passive token holders assign their voting power to active delegates. The delegate votes on their behalf, counting toward quorum. This means holders who would not vote individually still contribute to quorum through their delegate. It dramatically improves effective participation rates.