What is vote delegation? A DAO voting example

Vote delegation assigns governance voting power to a chosen representative address. The representative participates in decisions on your behalf; ordinary vote delegation does not transfer token ownership. Staking, credit delegation and token spending approvals are different operations.

What sets the scope of delegation?

The community’s rules, registry and measurement point determine where the delegation applies. Some systems require delegation to your own address before you can vote. Others use different strategies. Changing a representative does not necessarily change voting power for an existing proposal measured at a past block.

Snapshot’s delegation documentation explains why the registry and the space’s supported strategy must be checked together. The governance token entry covers the broader rights involved.

Example

In a hypothetical DAO, Alex has 200 voting power and a chosen representative has 300 of their own. If the delegation is valid at the measurement point, the representative can vote with 500. Alex’s 200 tokens do not move into the representative’s wallet merely because voting power was delegated. Total power does not become 700: the same 200 cannot count twice.

If Alex later changes representatives, the relevant registry and the proposals affected by that change must be checked. Whether a direct vote overrides a representative’s vote also depends on the model. Our DAO decision-power analysis examines how representation affects outcomes.