Bitcoin Forum

Hello, I had an Idea.

What if big governments did their voting with blockchains?

This could stand to remove a lot of corruption in the voting/polling system given it is done correctly.


Could this be a key to governments with more integrity?

Nice idea but I guess that gouvernments won't like this because if this works out they can't manipulate the voting system themselves. ;D Just kidding.

We will see blockchain technologie in a lot of sections in the future.

This blockchain would have to have mining power with an incentive back to whoever mined it, just like Bitcoin. I don't see the incentive here. Or at least knowing for sure that elections weren't forged isn't an incentive enough for most people... And places where this matters are probably places who couldn't even afford mining even at a big reward due to the initial hardware and power cost. Not saying it's a bad ideia, just saying that I don't see it being feasible.

I've thought about that myself. Though, I must admit, that I have been distracted with another way of utilizing blockchain more lucratively. I was planning on trying to implement something like that after.

This type of blockchain does not need proof of work to generate blocks. It does not need to be trustless, it just needs to be transparent and verifiable.

True, it could be implemented with some facilitators and possibly a proof of burn concept?

It could make the entire voting process more transparent, on both sides, for candidates and voters. Candidates can be sure of tally numbers and recounts are easily done by checking the Blockchain. Voters will gain ease of access and a wealth of knowledge on candidates, statistics, media and the like.

Use of the blockchain for trust reasons in Politics could be a gamechanger, and could steer us away from a lot of the problems plaguing our systems today. I like the idea, and I hope it gets implemented in the next 200-300 years  ;D

So all the voting will be visible on the chain.
This means that whoever created the addresses (or the identities) will also know how you voted.
I have a problem with this thing.



How would you gain info on the candidates via the chain?
If they want to give away that info they can do it now freely. If they don't you can;t force them with a simple blockchain.

Stop looking at the blockhain like ts the holy grail and a fix for everything.

Goverments without corruption... IMO no blockchain can get rid of that issue... but I like the idea though :)

government uses blockchain to vote, it will be great, and any fraud will be recorded forever, so that's probably not what the government wants... ;D

We may be having problem in here.
Since if the purpose of putting it to blockchain is to make the votes transparent and open to the public.  My question is how will we determine if the real person is indeed the one who casted their votes?  Another question;  are we going to assign a specific address for a certain person so that we will have a finite number of voters,  how can we be sure that the voters identity will reamin in secrecy?
There are so many if's and how's in this proposal.
But maybe one day it could be done for a freater benefit.

I don't know how blockchains could be used for voting without compromising privacy.
You will need to trust whoever converted the data into digital format, so the problem would be the same. Unless you want to reveal people's vote, but democracies usually keep the votes secret.

That is look like a great idea, specially for those people who are abroad and they cannot come to their country for voting, i think through this way they can use the right of their vote, but as it is still not applied anywhere, therefore no one know that either it can be applicable or not. My personal view is that in near future it may not work, because currently majority of people do not know about blockchain technology, because blockchain technology is not yet common in all over the world.

I agree with the whole privacy concern that is being raised. But with all the differing ideas and concepts, not to mention the coin, that is out there that center around privacy I'm sure that those could be implemented into whatever system is utilized to make this concept into reality. It would definitely need an experienced team to implement correctly. After that the hardest part would be the sell to the prospective government. :)

This has a lot of strings attached to it, mainly governments not wanting to changing the system at all. Current reigning parties would always turn down these systems because there is corruption at almost every turn and this is what leads to their successful electoral campaign.
Of course this could make everything completely transparent but no government in the world wants it that way so this is almost ruled out.

There are already people working on such systems to incorporate the Blockchain into voting systems. The problem I see with this is, the impact spamming will have on voting day. We have seen how disruptive these spam attacks has been in the past. Voters cannot wait 24 hours for their transactions to confirm.

Miners can also selectively mine certain blocks to sabotage the voting process. Imagine a large mining pool, switching to Bitcoin Cash or Bitcoin Gold on the voting day. ^hmmmmm^

It actually sounds like a good idea. If something as complicated and sensitive as banking transactions can be performed using blockchain, I don't see why the same couldn't be done for voting. Certainly some of the features are perfect to what a fair voting process should be. Some of the problems brought up by posters here and some possible solutions, trying to stick to very basic levels:


There are so many state and non-profit electoral watchdogs who already spend huge budgets trying to ensure fair elections. If you had a working blockchain solution, I guarantee it will cost less. That's incentive enough (besides the incentive of transparent, immutable and verifiable votes!). Besides, plenty of other protocols besides PoW.



Knowing an address doesn't equate to knowing the identities. It's basically the same thing as getting your voter# on an electoral roll assigned to you. Just because your voter# is known, doesn't mean they know your identity. People don't just go into voting booths with masks to cast their votes, in your country, do they? Besides, if that's really a problem, implement some anonymous protocol similar to Monero and you hide the address of the voter.

This might be another use of the blockchain. Whether or not the government use it for voting, they will surely try to adopt in their region if they come to know the advantages it has over the regular voting systems. It might be a leading step towards crypto for the countries who haven't legalized crypto currencies yet in their region. It is a good idea but would require a lot of planning to execute it in a proper way.

That's actually an excellent idea. There will be quirks that will need ironing out, but the potential for complete transparency should not be ignored. Governments have been slow to adapt to technology when it comes to sensitive processes, but this is one they should truly look into. Blockchain technology is still in its infancy and we're already seeing uses for real world problems. Its propagation would be beneficial to everyone, not to mention it would be good press for Bitcoins.

the biggest question that should be answers first is : WHY?

what is blockchain? it is a chain of blocks.
what would these blocks regarding votes contain? the votes themselves? why? what would be the point of creating a chain of votes in form of blocks and hold them somewhere? what is wrong with a normal database instead of a blockchain?

or maybe you mean some form of cryptographic proof? that is not blockchain.
it is something else, but who will issue the keys for creating the "vote" cryptographically and how would you prevent people from having multiple keys?
and the final question is that will it be worth all these efforts to replace the old system that works?


I see others saying "it is a good idea" but in my opinion your idea is way too vague and general. you need to explain how will it work and what are the angles then decide if it is a good or a terrible idea. because it can be either.

It is a good idea to prevent cheating on a National Election. It will be more transparent hard to hack and more reliable.

The why is quite simple, to prevent electoral fraud/Tampering with electronic voting machines. A transparent, hack-proof/secure voting system based on Blockchain eliminates this.

The existing voting system, be it paper-based or e-voting isn't transparent, you cast vote, you aren't sure if your vote was changed or counted. That's why some people abstain from voting. A transparent voting system would restore their trust. So IMO it is definitely worth replacing the existing system.

List of controversial elections, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_controversial_elections

Digital Voting with the use of Blockchain Technology, https://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/plymouth.pdf

The concept is implementable.

And how about storing personal data? It will be scary when everyone can see my personal data on blockchain.

Interesting concept. There are numerous applications for blockchain currently being tested but i have not heard of this specific use case yet. Does anyone have any information about people looking into it? Banks are already using the tech for their own purposes, so if feasible i dont see a reason for government not to at least consider it. Although, expect a large outcry but those that dont understand the tech, in relation to the possibility for the elections to be had and compromised. People fear what they dont understand.

Good idea,  it should be aplied as soon as possible. That is really important thing.  I think blockchain technology is really useful, isn't it?. I hope the government hear your idea.

Great way of thinking! This is a great idea but I think the countries who need this would resist it, because there are no ways in doing corruption after a vote is done! Corruption is a think that can make you at loss even having the most powerful resources!

Your personal data isn't visible to everyone on Blockchain. A voter's vote anonymity is ensured. Please go through the whole PDF to understand one of the possible implementations of Blockchain technology in a voting system.