[Shutter DAO 0x36 Impact Pilot Program Round 1 — Proactive Grant] Gavel Elections: Shutter-Powered Private Voting for Nouns DAO, with a Reusable Multi-DAO Election Framework
1. Application
Applicant name or organization: Gavel Elections — independent open-source project (applicant: Gramajo)
Primary contact / forum handle: Gramajo
Social Handle (X and/or LinkedIn): X
Github Profile: jgramajo4 (Juan Gramajo) · GitHub
Related open-source project: GitHub - jgramajo4/gavel: Gavel is a tool to keep your voice in governance · GitHub
How did you hear about this grant program? Through the Shutter community forum.
Wallet address for payment (if approved): 0xf34D502536E6E88D16c9bBBC9D3BF60efA9D8efF
Application type:
- ☒ Round 1 — Proactive grant for defined future work
Round 1 objective (select one):
- ☒ Objective 2 — Qualify a Private Voting Deployment
Contribution area:
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☒ Governance or proposal development
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☒ Research or technical work
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☒ Ecosystem development, partnerships, or business development
2. The Shutter need or opportunity
What specific need, opportunity, or gap does this contribution address?
DAOs regularly need to select administrators, representatives, committee members, and other positions through elections. However, their existing governance systems do not always provide configurable, temporarily private ballots, ranked-choice counting, or a complete independent verification record.
Gavel Elections is a proposed open-source, multi-DAO election platform designed to address this gap using Shutter’s threshold encryption.
The initial integration opportunity is Nouns DAO’s DUNA administrator election process, with the goal of building a reusable framework for subsequent Nouns elections and other DAOs.
The proposed architecture separates voter eligibility, ballot confidentiality, election settlement, and governance execution:
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Ethereum mainnet: Provides historical voter eligibility and delegated voting power. Gavel Elections independently captures an eligibility snapshot at a fixed block before voting. We are not using Snapshot.org.
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Arbitrum One: Serves as the proposed settlement chain for encrypted ballot submissions and election commitments.
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Shutter Network: Provides threshold encryption, keeping ballot selections concealed during voting and releasing decryption material after the election’s defined close.
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Gavel Elections: Provides the election frontend, eligibility proofs, configurable counting methods, public results, and verification tools.
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Arweave/IPFS: Provides archival storage and independent retrieval of election evidence.
The application will support two voting-power policies:
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Equal voting: One eligible voting identity receives one voting unit.
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Weighted voting: Each eligible voting identity receives voting power determined by the historical eligibility snapshot.
For Nouns, the initial eligible identity is a voting delegate address, not necessarily a unique human. This distinction will be documented.
The longer-term design will support approval voting, ranked-choice instant-runoff voting, and multi-winner single transferable vote (STV).
Importantly, Gavel Elections is nonbinding. For Nouns, an election can identify selected candidates, but any formal DUNA administrator appointment remains subject to Nouns DAO’s existing Ethereum mainnet governance process. The selected candidate or eligible sponsor would still need to submit the corresponding mainnet proposal.
The grant does not seek to replace Nouns governance. It seeks to qualify an additional private election mechanism that Nouns could evaluate and potentially adopt.
Why is it relevant to Shutter now?
Shutter already provides infrastructure for protecting ballot confidentiality. A useful next step is demonstrating how those capabilities can be integrated into election applications beyond an existing voting platform.
Gavel Elections proposes to investigate a specific architecture: Ethereum-derived voter eligibility, encrypted ballots settled on Arbitrum, and Shutter-powered delayed disclosure.
If feasible, this would demonstrate a reusable integration pattern for DAOs whose governance assets remain on one chain while their elections operate on another.
Nouns presents a concrete starting point because its recent DUNA administrator proposals document a real need for candidate selection and election-process design.
Rather than building a generic encryption demonstration, the proposed work focuses on qualifying an identifiable governance workflow and producing evidence sufficient for an informed pilot decision.
The reusable framework would also create a pathway for later integrations with other token-governed communities, including organizations using delegation, NFT ownership, or verified membership for eligibility.
What specific demand signal supports this work now?
The immediate demand signal is Nouns DAO’s documented consideration of alternative administrator-selection mechanisms.
1. Nouns Proposal 903 — DUNA Admin Election Structure
This proposal provides an example of a proposed alternative election structure, including separate candidate selection and governance ratification considerations.
2. Nouns Proposal 905 — Ratify an Onchain 2026 DUNA Admin Election Process
This proposal establishes the context of Nouns’ administrator-selection process and its reliance on mainnet governance.
Together, the proposals provide evidence of an actual election-design problem rather than a hypothetical DAO use case.
3. Existing Gavel open-source development
Gavel is an existing governance tooling project focused on DAO participation and governance workflows, including Nouns.
Gavel Elections would be developed as a separate product but could reuse relevant experience with Nouns governance data, proposal indexing, and wallet interactions.
Important qualification: These proposals demonstrate a documented election workflow and governance interest in how administrator elections should operate. They do not constitute an endorsement of Gavel Elections or a commitment from Nouns DAO to adopt Shutter.
Establishing the relevant Nouns counterpart and obtaining feedback on the proposed private voting integration are explicit grant deliverables.
Who benefits from the outcome, and how?
Nouns DAO delegates and election organizers
Gain an evaluated mechanism for encrypted ballots, configurable equal or weighted voting, ranked-choice elections, and independent result verification without requiring Nouns NFTs to move to Arbitrum.
Nouns administrator candidates
Gain a structured election process in which ballot selections remain concealed during voting, followed by a transparent counting and governance handoff process.
Shutter Network
Gains a concrete cross-chain integration assessment, a testable demonstration of threshold-encrypted DAO ballots if feasibility is confirmed, and a documented opportunity for future recurring election usage.
Other DAOs
Gain reusable architecture and documentation for adopting private elections with their own eligibility sources, voting-power rules, and governance processes.
Open-source developers
Gain technical documentation and reusable components that can reduce the cost of evaluating Shutter in additional governance applications.
Value pathway
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☒ Validated path toward a pilot, integration, or repeatable workflow
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☒ Durable ecosystem, adoption, or public-goods value aligned with Shutter’s mission
Who is the relevant decision-maker, operating owner, funder, partner, or beneficiary group?
The initial beneficiary and prospective adopting community is Nouns DAO, specifically the delegates and participants responsible for establishing and administering its DUNA election process.
The formal decision-maker for recognizing or adopting a new election mechanism is Nouns DAO through its existing governance process.
The proposed technical operating owner is the Gavel Elections project.
Shutter’s technical contributors are a relevant counterpart for validating the encryption integration and understanding the service’s operational and potential commercial requirements.
During the grant period, the work will identify the appropriate Nouns election organizer or governance counterpart and seek feedback on the proposed pilot.
No formal adoption commitment, deployment sponsorship, or willingness to pay is represented as secured at the time of application.
What problem are they solving, and what evidence supports the value of addressing it?
The core problem is conducting a credible election that:
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Preserves the community’s existing governance eligibility.
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Does not expose ballot selections before voting closes.
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Supports different distributions of voting power.
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Can accommodate multi-candidate selection methods.
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Produces a result that third parties can independently verify.
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Does not require replacing the DAO’s existing governance contracts.
Nouns’ administrator-election proposals document the election design and governance-authorization requirements.
Shutter is relevant because revealing choices only after the vote closes can reduce information-driven behavior based on observed candidate standings.
The grant will test whether this specific cross-chain design is operationally feasible and whether it offers a credible, understandable path to a Nouns pilot.
It will not claim that encrypted voting eliminates bribery, coercion, Sybil behavior, or all strategic voting.
What Shutter product, deployment, service, or capability would this contribution advance?
The contribution advances Shutter’s threshold-encryption and private-voting capabilities, particularly their use in independently built DAO election applications.
The integration will investigate:
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Election-specific encryption identities
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Browser-side encrypted ballot construction
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Encrypted ballot submission to Arbitrum
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Time-based decryption after an established cutoff
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Retrieval and independent decryption of accepted ciphertexts
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Reproducible public tallying
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Operational constraints and integration requirements
A central technical question is whether Shutter’s existing Gnosis-based infrastructure can securely support this proposed Arbitrum-settled election architecture without requiring a new Shutter deployment.
The project will document any limitations rather than assume native support.
Permanent ballot secrecy is not part of the initial scope. The intended pilot uses temporary encryption followed by public reveal.
What decision, implementation step, or next action should this contribution enable, and by when?
By the week of November 30, 2026, the contribution will deliver a decision-ready Nouns private election pilot package.
The package will allow the relevant Nouns stakeholders and Shutter contributors to assess whether to proceed with a more complete implementation.
The proposed work has three milestones.
Milestone 1 — Feasibility and stakeholder qualification (early November 2026)
Deliver:
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A documented review of the Nouns administrator-election workflow.
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A defined Nouns stakeholder outreach and feedback record, or a documented account of unsuccessful outreach.
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An Ethereum eligibility snapshot design supporting both equal and weighted voting.
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An architecture assessment of Shutter encryption with Arbitrum settlement.
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A feasibility test plan, including reveal timing, settlement finality, privacy limitations, and technical risks.
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A public repository or documentation package containing the initial findings.
The feasibility review will explicitly identify any blockers that make the proposed integration unsuitable.
Milestone 2 — Technical demonstration and reusable pilot package (week of November 30, 2026)
Subject to successful feasibility validation, deliver:
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A minimal testnet demonstration of a Shutter-encrypted ballot committed to Arbitrum Sepolia.
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A fixed mock or historical Ethereum-derived eligibility dataset with verifiable proofs.
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A working election flow using one defined ballot-counting method.
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Evidence of the encryption, submission, reveal, and verification lifecycle.
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A reproducible election tally.
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A sample election evidence archive and publication manifest.
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A Nouns-specific pilot proposal describing remaining requirements, costs, security considerations, and governance authorization.
If a critical upstream technical constraint prevents the demonstration, deliver a reproducible blocker report, tested evidence, and alternative deployment assessment instead. Any reduction to the agreed milestone scope would be submitted for Shutter DAO review, not treated as automatic completion.
Next decision
The final report should enable Nouns election stakeholders and the Shutter community to decide whether a further pilot is technically justified, whether additional funding or infrastructure is required, and what a production-ready integration would involve.
Any pricing or ongoing operating cost proposed for Shutter usage will be based on information obtained during the grant period. No Shutter commercial commitment or rate is assumed.
What evidence will show progress beyond outreach, general interest, or a speculative concept?
The work will produce publicly reviewable artifacts:
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Public technical repository — Architecture, dependencies, snapshot rules, integration code or feasibility test harness, and reproducible setup instructions.
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Cross-chain feasibility evidence — Test transactions, encryption/decryption results, documented assumptions, and identified blockers.
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Nouns election integration specification — Mapping from Ethereum mainnet voting authority to Arbitrum ballot eligibility, including equal and weighted modes.
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Independent verification example — A deterministic election tally and instructions to reproduce it from committed ballot evidence.
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Archival example — A canonical evidence manifest with content hashes and verified IPFS/Arweave references where implemented.
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Stakeholder qualification record — Relevant Nouns and Shutter feedback, outstanding questions, and identification of who would authorize the next step.
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Decision-ready pilot proposal — Clear scope, feasibility verdict, dependencies, anticipated operating model, and recommended next milestone.
The intention is to provide Shutter with evidence of an actual integration opportunity—not merely a landing page, architecture diagram, or speculative product pitch.
3. Funding request
Amount requested: USD $3,000
Proposed use of funds / budget rationale:
The requested funding covers a focused feasibility and integration-qualification effort, not an audited or production-ready election platform.
| Workstream | Hours | Rate | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nouns workflow research, eligibility architecture and stakeholder qualification | 8 | $75 | $600 |
| Shutter/Arbitrum integration feasibility and prototype | 16 | $75 | $1,200 |
| Deterministic tally, sample evidence archive and verification | 10 | $75 | $750 |
| Documentation, public findings and decision-ready Nouns pilot proposal | 6 | $75 | $450 |
| Total | 40 | $3,000 |
The proposed budget is for new grant-scoped work. Existing Gavel development is background context and is not being submitted for retroactive compensation.
Milestone for the second 50% payment — early November 2026:
Publish the feasibility assessment, eligibility architecture, initial cross-chain integration test results or reproducible blockers, and the Nouns stakeholder qualification record.
The evidence will be posted publicly for review.
Final deliverable — week of November 30, 2026:
Publish the integration demonstration or reviewed blocker package, verification artifacts, reusable technical documentation, and Nouns-specific pilot proposal.
Production deployment, external security audits, complete ranked-choice implementation, permanent ballot privacy, and formal Nouns governance approval are outside this grant’s funded scope.
4. Prior compensation and disclosures
Have you, your organization, or a related party received or requested compensation for this work from Shutter or another source?
- ☒ No
Applicant to complete before submission.
Related work disclosure:
Gavel is an existing, independently developed open-source governance project:
Gavel Elections is a proposed standalone extension of this broader governance tooling work. The requested funding concerns new Shutter integration feasibility, election qualification, and reusable documentation.
Do you have any financial, professional, or organizational conflict relevant to this application?
- ☒ Yes — I am a Nouns holder, still actively vote. I ran for DUNA Admin last year.
5. Public discussion
Forum post link: This thread, once published. Community Chat, link.
Questions or feedback requested from the community:
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Cross-chain encryption: Are there known operational or security limitations when using Shutter’s existing encryption infrastructure for ballots committed on Arbitrum One, while voter eligibility is derived from Ethereum mainnet?
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Election integration: Would Shutter contributors recommend time-based key release for this pilot, and what finality and reveal-delay assumptions should we adopt?
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Pilot scope and adoption: For a Nouns-first election platform designed to support other DAOs, what would Shutter consider the most valuable evidence for moving from a technical proof of concept to a supported private voting deployment?
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Future privacy models: Is there an appropriate path for evaluating Shutter’s permanently private voting work for ranked-choice and weighted multi-winner elections in a later phase?
Feedback from Nouns governance participants, Shutter engineers, and other DAO election organizers would be particularly valuable.
6. Applicant attestation
I confirm that the information in this application is accurate to the best of my knowledge; that I have disclosed relevant prior compensation and conflicts; and that I understand any award remains subject to the published process and DAO approval.
Name / handle: Gramajo
Date: October 9, 2026