Why we should not be voting on the blockchain MIT Digital Currency Initiative

Ethereum smart contracts support a variety of distributed apps across the crypto ecosystem. There are already companies working to bring blockchain to the voting populace. One such firm is Horizon State, which has launched a unique solution to answer the question, “If democracy was designed with today’s technology, what would it look like? In the decade since its inception, blockchain was mostly tied to the success of the technology that created it, bitcoin.

On the other hand, voting on the blockchain will be an encrypted piece of data that is fully open and publicly stored on a distributed blockchain network rather than a single server. A consensus process on a blockchain mechanism validates each encrypted vote, and the public records each vote on distributed copies of the blockchain ledger . The government will observe how votes were cast and recorded, but this information will not be restricted to policy.

Hang L., Kim D.-H. Design and implementation of an integrated iot blockchain platform for sensing data integrity. A “democratic” system is defined if only eligible voters can vote, and only a single vote can be cast for each registered voter . Another function is that no one else should be able to duplicate the vote. The reverse side of this approach is that if a voter claims that their vote is recorded or tallied incorrectly, they simply cannot prove it due to a lack of evidence. Mix-networks also rely on the distribution of the trust, but in another way.

Blockchain Voting: The Future of Elections?

Voting machines break down, software fails and election irregularities often create uncertainty and doubt among the voting public. His company creates a voting system that ensures that a vote is recorded one time for the specific candidate they want (placed into the candidate’s “wallet”) and permanently recorded on the blockchain. It was not possible to use most of them as an additional voting channel (for example, when voters can choose to vote online, by post, and/or in a polling station). In other words, they must be used as the sole voting channel or would otherwise require “offchain” operations. To avoid this, if system is integrated with blockchain- a special property called immutability protects system.

More so, it will also eliminate any third-party involvement and will establish tamper-proof voting. However, e-voting using blockchain can help to eliminate the problems. For example, blockchain can offer its decentralized platform to cast a vote. Here, there will be no centralized authority who can tamper with the results. In reality, blockchain-based voting systems offer a ton of applications.

Chainlink is a cryptocurrency and technology platform that enables blockchain platforms to securely interact with external data. Khan K.M., Arshad J., Khan M.M. Investigating performance constraints for blockchain based secure e-voting system. Kim T., Ochoa J., Faika T., Mantooth A., Di J., Li Q., Lee Y. An overview of cyber-physical security of battery management systems and adoption of blockchain technology. Using homomorphic encryption for privacy implies that decryption is performed by several authorities so that no one can obtain the decryption key; otherwise, privacy will be violated . Although they offer several use cases, the primary one is related to revolutionizing the voting system, as the name suggests. One of the best perks about this venture is that it does not just reform the core voting practices.

Problems and Solutions of Developing Online Voting Systems

Voting is frequently done viva voce, or by voice vote, in the days following American independence. Later the same year, in 1634, Massachusetts became the first state to elect its governor via paper vote. Voting is a fundamental right for citizens in democracies all over the world.

• The first things that come to mind about the blockchain are cryptocurrencies and smart contracts because of the well-known initiatives in Bitcoin and Ethereum.
• The West Virginia blockchain voting experiment is among the most successful demonstrations of the technology to date.
• As we just mentioned in our hypothetical blockchain election, counting votes stored on a blockchain would take considerably less time than counting paper ballots.
• To test this, the developers and other technical people download the entire code and try to break it from an adversary perspective.
• So, you can eliminate the secrecy once and for all and establish a more transparent election.

As the number of votes cast in real life increases, citizens are becoming more aware of the significance of the electoral system . The voting system is the method through which judges judge who will represent in political and corporate governance. The efficacy of such a procedure is determined mainly by the level of faith that people have in the election process.

Blockchain can solve the many problems discovered in these early attempts at online voting. A blockchain-based voting application does not concern itself with the security of its Internet connection, because 5 Brilliant Benefits of Freelance Life any hacker with access to the terminal will not be able to affect other nodes. Voters can effectively submit their vote without revealing their identity or political preferences to the public.

Blockchain voting can make elections faster and assure everyone of near-instant results. The system uses an encrypted digital ballot box, which allows users to vote from a PC or mobile device—no need to attend a drawn-out physical voting session. Not only do businesses save money on organizing expensive elections, but this novel arrangement promises faster, more convenient, and secure voting.

There are 167 nations with democracy in 2018, out of approximately 200, which are either wholly flawed or hybrid . The secret voting model has been used to enhance trust in democratic systems since the beginning of the voting system. In India, blockchain-based voting has already been tested for Telangana’s municipal Cloud Banking Payments Solutions election in 2021. This pilot showed that the technology can work and that it could help improve the voting process. However, more pilots are needed in order to fully assess the potential of blockchain in voting. Experts believe that another potential use case for blockchain voting is the auditing of results.

Potential Benefits of Blockchain Voting

In time, it would also help more people engage with politics, and feel as if their opinion matters, which would probably lead to higher voter turnouts and a stronger democracy. Switzerland is another country that’s working on the blockchain voting system project. In reality, most of Zug’s citizens are already really pleased with the e-voting blockchain offers as it makes the process a lot cost-effective and quick. More so, they also participated in the voting recently to further test out the system.

On-chain governance is a governance system for blockchain in which rules are hardcoded into protocol. Investopedia requires writers to use primary sources to support their work. These include white papers, government data, original reporting, and interviews with industry experts. We also reference original research from other reputable publishers where appropriate. You can learn more about the standards we follow in producing accurate, unbiased content in oureditorial policy. Saheb T., Mamaghani F.H. Exploring the barriers and organizational values of blockchain adoption in the banking industry.

7. Transparency and Fairness

Therefore the dependability and higher operational cost are lowered, and the system is made more scalable and robust in the future. Any change suggested to the source code is not merged immediately, and the developers must seek a consensus from the blockchain network before the changes are implemented on the network. When using our blockchain voting system, the voter would download and install the Follow My Vote voting booth on the personal device of their choice (i.e. desktop computer, laptop computer, smartphone, or tablet). From there, the voter would submit the appropriate identity information in order to have their identity verified by an Identity Verifier, which would be approved by the organization hosting the election ahead of time.

This transaction is then broadcasted to every node in network, which in turn is then verified. If network approves transaction, it is stored in a block and added to chain. Note that once a block is added into chain, it stays there forever An Intro to Git and GitHub for Beginners Tutorial and can’t be updated. Users can now see results and also trace back transaction if they want. You may never know that hacker installs malware or performs clickjacking attacks to steal or negate your vote or simply attacks central server.

Although blockchains use multiple redundant servers they offer no additional protection against DoS attacks beyond what is achievable for a conventional server with the same aggregate communication capacity. With a webcam and valid voting ID, election participants can remotely cast a vote from any mobile device. The company’s software produces a unique ID for each voter that cannot be replicated.