Votes

A vote is used by representatives as a means to communicate their intent to add a set of blocks to their ledger. Depending on the time-frame that an issued vote is valid for, it is either considered a temporary or permanent vote.

Both temporary and permanent votes on Keeta Network are encoded as X.509 certificates. X.509 was chosen because it is a widely-used and well-known standard, and contains a flexible data structure using ASN.1.

Each vote contains the following:

An Issuer: The account that signed the vote

Serial: An arbitrary integer defined by the issuer which is generally incrementing. Two separate votes with the same issuer + serial will not be accepted by the network

Blocks: A set of hashes of blocks that the issuer is vouching validity for

Starting Time: The timestamp when the vote was issued

Ending/Expiry Time: The timestamp of when the vote expires and should not be considered in quorum anymore

Signature: The issuers signature on the data included, proving that they were the one to issue the vote

A vote is considered valid to a representative in the voting process if it is not expired, the serial has not been seen before, and the set of blocks is valid.