Technology is reaching into every aspect of our lives, be it financial in transactions, social interactions, academics & even our romantic lives!
In short, it has upgraded our lives with just a few clicks.
However, if there is one thing that still requires some up-gradation is our Electoral system.
Although with the rise in blockchain technology in the world, online voting has the potential to make voting more accessible and improve election integrity.
Many experts in the bitcoin world believe that blockchain technology will allow for a new method of voting, that is far more secure, easier & will allow more people to actively participate in their civic rights.
What are the current problems in voting systems?
One of the primary concerns of the election system is secure.
News21, conducted a study a few years ago, which found that out of 2,608 cases alleging voter fraud nationally from 2000 to 2012 and found only 1 case of in-person voter fraud every 207 cases involving other types of election fraud.
At the 2017 Def Con conference, some hackers demonstrated that they could hack into every one of the 22 different voting machines purchased from U.S. government auction sites and eBay.
And this is just the U.S.
Think about India, with such a huge political turmoil the country goes through during elections, how many fraud cases could be there?
It has turned out that the number of voters is declining around the world with each election campaign.
An article in the Medium says that worldwide there are around 230 million eligible voters who are not registered to vote, & significant others are failing to turn up to vote.
Some of the reasons behind the situation, the experts are suggesting, are lack of proper identification process, lack of proper accessible booths & political party violence, pressures.
And don’t think for a minute that these problems are faced by just economically challenged or politically unstable countries.
The United States has one of the lowest voter turnouts (42.5%) in the world. Only 7% of the 3 million eligible U.S. citizens who live outside the United States voted in the 2016 presidential election!
And the reason cited was half of them couldn’t make it to the polls.
How Blockchain technology can help in election systems?
Blockchain’s three fundamental characteristics- immutability, accountability & security- are the drive for securely maintaining records.
Blockchain technology uses DLT or distributed ledger technology, which means that information is not centralized, ensuring all data is copied on nodes across the network.
Also, due to this decentralization, the information cannot be lost, there cannot be any cyber-attacks.
Also, this process will ensure the voter’s registration & the whole election campaign could much cheaper to run.
Countries using blockchain technology for voting
Russia
For their pilot project in June 2019, authorities in Moscow have planned & launched a blockchain-based electronic voting system. This project was carried out by partnering with the Moscow City Election Commission and Moscow Department of Information Technology (DIT).
South Korea
The Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Election Commission (NEC) of South Korea is planning on developing a voting system.
The system that is to be developed will apply blockchain in voter authentification & result saving that will be able to improve transparency & security.
The voting is said to be conducted from mobile phones & personal computers. All the data will be saved on a distributed network and all voters will be able to view voting results as they progress.
USA
The United States has started to practice blockchain-based election campaigns from the 2018 U.S. midterm elections in the State of West Virginia. They used Voatz’s mobile voting application to enable overseas voters to vote.
A total of 144 voters from 31 countries participated in the pilot.
Blockchain-based startups
Follomyvote
This is a startup based on Virginia attempting to build a blockchain-based infrastructure for election systems.
Adam Ernest, the company’s CEO, stated that “there is a common misconception that voting cannot be done online in a secure way. However, the introduction of blockchain technology is changing the conversation.”
BitCongress
This company is developing a blockchain voting system based on a token system, ensuring full security with one unchangeable vote.
The token is called a VOTE, and by using the blockchain to record each vote permanently, it ensures that there can be no manipulation of those votes or voting twice.
What are some of the concerns for the blockchain-based voting system?
Governance issues
Permissioned blockchain voting systems are to be controlled by companies that develop them, sp there is a possibility that the developers can change the rules or choose verifiers that are or can be biased and unduly influence the system.
Privacy issues
In order to make the voting systems fully transparent, it needs to be accessible by the public.
There is a concern as public accessibility is a concern to keep voter’s information confidential.
However, Voatz deals with this issue by building auditing and privacy into the process. They directly worked with the State of West Virginia and independent third-party companies to audit the system.
Blockchain is a great way to ensure our voting is done right!
But it requires a lot of testing & trialing before it can be executed thoroughly.
Do you have a firm developing a new technology that needs digital marketing? Contact Us at Skyram Technologies, our experts will guide you through the process.
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