Blockchain has enormous potential to improve the voting scenario

Blockchain innovation is threatening to disrupt the “trust” that’s been established between buyer and seller. For example, you can check The News Spy system to get an automated trading experience by accessing the best-in-class trading bots and strategies. Blockchain technology seeks to remove intermediaries from supply chains, and it has the potential to replace many of the legacy systems that underpin voting — giving voters a more accessible democratic process.

In Australia, for example, there were two critical failings in their 2017 general election, which delivered a hung parliament: firstly, postal votes were opened, which could have undermined secrecy; and secondly, there was an extraordinary amount of ballot papers rejected by scanning machines because users had not scanned them incorrectly.

If the government don’t act now, we will be left behind as blockchain technologies go mainstream worldwide. The blockchain has the potential to improve the voting process in several ways. First, it is decentralized, which means all voters can access it without fear of manipulation or fraud. It is immutable and transparent, so voters can verify that the vote has been recorded accurately.

 A blockchain system could make voting incredibly safe, simple, secure and convenient — which might bring back disillusioned Australians voting at election time. The challenges around blockchain technology are that it is still in its infancy stage, security challenges such as hacking and identity theft, and the systems are slow. 

How Can Blockchain Transform the Electronic Voting System?

The concept of blockchain technology has been around since 2009, but its development has recently attracted significant attention. It is sometimes also called distributed ledger or digital ledger. Its primary function is to provide an unalterable and transparent way of recording transactions, eliminating the need for a central authority or middleman.

Users can apply it to many industries, from banking and finance to healthcare, real estate, music and the sharing economy. The current public debate about blockchain is driven by its potential to disrupt existing business models and governance systems. However, blockchain technologies also have their potential in our society and political systems.

Problems and Solutions of Developing Online Voting Systems:

The internet voting system has been proposed frequently in recent years. However, the implementation of online voting is still the most controversial topic because of several potential problems:

The need to protect ballots electronically. When voters cast their votes online, the ballot numbers can be encrypted and cannot be seen by any polling staff or the candidates. However, one-way encryption can only ensure the safety of ballots during online voting processes but cannot be decrypted to recover original ballot numbers at any time.

 Therefore, any tampering will always reveal itself while casting ballots. The Hash coding method is somehow more innovative than the encryption method. Then, the ballot for which there is a discrepancy between both copies should be discarded and re-cast using a new random ballot number. It will ensure that no fraudulent ballots have been cast. It is further complicated because each blockchain may not have the same notion of authentic or “real” identities. 

For example, it may be the case that on one blockchain, a given identity is “real” or authentic if and only if that person signs a message using the public key with which they are associated. In this case, online voting systems need to ensure not only the authenticity of ballots but also the authenticity of ballot signers. Another approach is to develop cryptographic protocols that would use a zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technique based on the concept of homomorphic encryption. One of these protocols is SCORE (Secure Counting of Real Election). 

How can blockchain resolve all these problems?

Blockchain can solve all these problems by running a secure and transparent online voting system. The underlying technology behind blockchain is a critical concept in the blockchain ecosystem — called “Turing complete” or “decentralized”. A Turing-complete platform means it can process large amounts of data, including structured and unstructured data such as records and transactions, with as much reliability as a centralized system while keeping data security intact. It forms part of the distributed ledger architecture adapted to provide transparency and immutability in digital transactions.

There are several advantages of adopting blockchain-based online voting systems: 

Online voting systems will ensure voters can cast votes securely and anonymously without fear of manipulation or fraud. Blockchain-based online voting systems have built-in security features that ensure that the identity of voters will not be compromised and their ballots can be cast by citizens safely. 

Blockchain ensures that online votes cannot be manipulated or tampered with after they are cast, regardless of how many people are involved in the process. It is true because all transactions in a blockchain are verified by multiple parties, thus making any forms of interference impossible.

Blockchain applications can eliminate fake news on social media and improve voter information and participation opportunities with new strategies for engaging voters, such as self-sovereign ID cards, voter polls and biometric verification at polling booths. It would allow for more secure ways to verify voter identity using biometrics than passwords alone.