Bitcoin Forum

I am not sure that blockchain technology can be used in the election polls or not but if we can implement this technology in elections we can eliminate fake voters and non favourable leaders from the government ruling place and can make this world as better place than now.

If this technology can be implemented then any government will implement that? What is your view on this!

Actually it's been implemented as far as I know:

[1]Switzerland's “Crypto Valley” Successfully Completes Blockchain Voting Trial (https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/switzerlands-crypto-valley-successfully-completes-blockchain-voting-trial//)

[2]Japanese City Trials Blockchain Voting for Social Development Programs (https://www.coindesk.com/japanese-city-trials-blockchain-voting-for-social-development-programs)

[3]Sierra Leone Uses Blockchain To Track Election Results (https://cointelegraph.com/news/sierra-leone-uses-blockchain-to-track-election-results-swiss-company-provides-expertise)

[4]US: West Virginia Completes First Blockchain-Supported State Elections  (https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-west-virginia-completes-first-blockchain-supported-state-elections)

For sure those progressive countries are already looking at this options. Not to save money but to make it more transparent to its electorate. On the other hand, there are those who opposes it, saying that we're getting totally dependent on the Internet. It's still a long way to go, but I guess its inevitable and we might see governments around the world slowly injecting it on their electoral process.

The blockchain technology and the election poll has been implemented by some countries and the result is immutable and transparent. I believe other countries that want to be transparent will implement it too.

Some elections have already been using the blockchain technology. I don't remember in which country though. It was in Switzerland or a country in Africa. Not a big election, just a local one. So yes it can be used, and it has many advantages, like fighting frauds, and so on.

Blockchain election, based on tokens (such as ERC20), can easily be managed. But the question, will the government like to have transparency in elections? They'll try to ignore blockchain elections as much as they can, because of the fear of "people getting into their own control".

I have read about a country that has successfully applied Blockchain technology in elections, and this event has been going on successfully. According to the announcement, the application of Blockchain technology eliminates fraudulent voting and counting. I believe that more and more countries will apply Blockchain to the election.

Thanks for sharing these articles! I knew that there were some experiments in this field, but the list makes it helpful. Blockchain should not be used simply for creation of new coins. It's a technology with big potential in the non-monetized areas as well. Elections, ticket sales, games, financing - many spheres can benefit from it. Blockchain makes elections unfakable. However, many people are naturally against it because of being too conservative and because of not even knowing how to use a computer. I also watched a Vox video on elections recently. It was about the US thinking about returning to the paper system, because digital equipment gets hacked, works poorly and requires regular updates and new equipment which it doesn't receive. At the same time, counting the paper votes manually is really unreliable as well. That's what they do in my country and there are often accusations of people filling out the blanks of those who didn't vote and stuff like that. I am in favor of blockchain voting, but the interface and equipment should be super user-friendly for this.

I could never think that election can be done to select through Blockchain. It will really bring many benefits. Fake vote can be eliminated in Anaas. I'm very optimistic about it. If voting is done by using this technology in the future, then I will support it 100%. Those who know about Blockchain they will certainly trust in it.

Wow! Amazing. The world is really advancing in technology. There are nightmares that are happening and had happened in the past in national elections and some until now is still unsolved. If it is true, then it could be a big breakthrough in this problem of election fraud. Everything will be transparent and no one could manipulate the result unless they will claim that the system broke down as it happened in my place in the past national election that the voting machine got a problem.  :D

Wow that's very great in order to have a transparent election polls. But I think it would be applicable to those  countries that really adapts blockchain technology. It's very hard for those belong to the third world country because this kind of technology it's not yet been implemented because it needs regulations.

Yes if Blockchain was adapted by the US pentagon in order to defense the system then how much more if it will be applied during election in which every details of every voters will be determine and the results will be a 100% cannot be alter and steal. Hopefully the government will lool into this possibility.

The best application for this is the transparency of the whole voting process. The public can follow the process and even verify the outcome from the votes that were recorded on the Blockchain.  ;)

They can also see if anyone tried to manipulate the process by introducing more votes than were allocated in advance. I think the biggest advantage is the fact that the votes that were recorded on the Blockchain, cannot be altered or changed by anyone.  ;D

That is the good thing that elections polls can be conducted through blockchain and if that happens it can bring new better leaders to us but is the current governments can actually will let it happen? Since most part of the world's elections are in manual mode because if there is digital method they can manipulate it but when it comes to blockchain they really can implement it.

As I have mentioned, there are pros and cons of using blockchain based voting. But it you look at the overall picture, this new technology is very helpful so it does makes sense of those countries who are still relying on the old traditional way of counting votes. Again one feature is the total transparency and the speed on how those votes can be counted. It can even cut in half the time spend so it's really beneficial at the long run. They can even do a trial or sort of experiment to see how it goes for them.

Check this tool out:
http://polltokens.io/
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/clearpoll/

They look legit and are trying cool stuff to make the voting system more transparent.

Wow so there could be no reason that the integration of blockchain to other existing system is possible. I really knew it that the blockchain technology will going to play an important role in the development of digital era. Well congrats on those country who were quickly able to know and lear in integrating the block chain technology.

As far as voting goes, it must be done on the Bitcoin blockchain. What other blockchain are going to trust? It would be rather counter productive to put it in any other blockchain, in fact I would trust the voting count to be more reliable by government officials than if it gets done on Ethereum or whatever other altcoin. Only the Bitcoin blockchain is decentralized enough for it to held votes.

How it would be done comes down to sidechains in my book. A sidechain could do this task better than cluttering the chain with a bunch of transactions per vote.

We talked about this matter on my local board back in April 2018. At the time, it seemed that Sierra Leone was the first successful case of elections using blockchain as a base. It wasn’t used country wide, but rather it was limited to a certain set of districts with the help of Agora (Swiss corporation).

If my memory serves me right, the information was encrypted before being placed on the blockchain, in order to allow information to be viewed in an anonymized manner, not on a nominal basis (as expected really).
While this enabled to monitor and audit the results, it still cannot ensure that there is no manipulation in my opinion, since the encrypted nature of the voter’s ID does not allow for an audit on a one to one basis. Ideally though, one should personally have access to see his own data (decrypted) and verify his own vote as a means to audit the results (I don’t think this was a feature in the Sierra Leone elections).

It has already been used.Not yet at a high level.But she will solve many problems with trust.

It can but it's a bit complicated... The problem being privacy.

In most countries you get to chose what you vote in secret but secret isn't part of blockchain. You need to get your chain public.

It has been implemented in previous elections as mentioned above but even before that automated elections even revolve on somewhere like that before where the voter shades the candidates he is voting for and then the machine counts the votes you have on your paper and they send your votes to the total poll. It is pretty straightforward back then but I think with the inementation of blockchain it made voting even more transparent to the countries who have availed.

I see that a few examples have already been mentioned, I will give the most recent:

https://www.ccn.com/south-korea-to-test-blockchain-based-voting-prior-to-integration-with-online-voting/

I think this is a great example of how blockchain can be used for important purposes. Whenever someone asks me about its use, this is my favorite example - voting!

I think its good idea to used blockchain technology in the system of the Election polls so that no one can change the result and to avoid the manipulate of the votes. I think Blockchain can only used for important purposes like counting of votes for election so it will goes successfully. I think its necessary to used Blockchain technology in all over the world during Election day so that we wil know if the result is correct.

Yes,blockchain can be used in many other fields other than cryptos but the sad thing is blockchain was invensted in 1990's but it was only used by satoshi in 2008 which shows that blockchain is still unrecognized among the world,we need more study course about blockchain to have them for real purposes.

It will be a great idea if this technology can be implemented all over the world during elections. I think most government may be studying this possibility already for their future elections. It will yield transparent results.

It's nice to know that some developed countries are implementing blockchain technology in small electoral processes. Little by little they are trying to test the capability of the blockchain technology. I will not be surprise that in five years time, automated elections are blockchain technology-based.

I am read article a few days ago that south korea already plan to use blockchain technology for election. Blockchain technology is not only for cryptocurrency, its usefull for any purpose. Government should start using blockchain technology to speed up their service and its much more secure to keep the data using blockchain technology

I also think about it, there are many problem in election polls in my country and the problem is never can be solved. I think blockchain technology will solve this problem and reduce the cost. I also heard that there are some countries that already apply this for their election polls. But I think for now it only can be aplied in developed countries which has good infrastructures.

That's really cool if the blockchain is used for elections. with the nature of the blockchain being transparent, there will be no fraud in the election.

There is a wide range of blockchain application but electronic voting by having blockchain system is something unusual yet very innovative. I've read some articles related to this one and it is really interesting the votes serves as the open ledger to garner a more transparent election that cannot be altered by any external means so it is very safe and fair election to be done. Country such as Japan and Switzerland never fail to impress me in terms of technological advances they are showing to the world, hope this would be another thing in the future for electronic voting in all world's country.

Country like Russia that are out for transparency have already venture into using blockchain technology in their election poll. They are setting the pace for other countries.

What a nice research that yout have. If this is actually true then this might just start a new era of voting online. I just don't know what are limitations to these or how could it differ from the usual method of election in tems of securing the anonymity of the vote but one thing is for certain it is something new and worth the try. I think security may not be that much of a concern since it is encrypted.

The blockchain may be a new step in the implementation of election transparency. This is another step in the development of civilization and democracy. With the impossibility of personal control of a huge system, a guaranteed transparent technology is required that will not raise questions. Implement this system will be the state, which is really for democracy and transparent elections

Since blockchain technology is transparent it is good it should be used for elections.  It will delete the issues of manipulations in our electoral system and the voting process will remain anonymous.  By that people should be able to elect the desire leaders without influence from the politicians.

Unfortunately that is both too costly and too dangerous for governments.

In all over the world even the politicians that lose the elections try to find a way to trick the system and get themselves more votes, hence it would be impossible to find enough politicians to get blockchain integrated with the elections system. In many of the countries in the world we do not get a fair elections and there are even countries where only a single person runs for presidency (even if not actually, they have opponents only on paper).

Hence, it would be a dream to make them think it would be a good idea to make elections decentralized and legit. Not even in the best of the countries like USA, UK, France and what not would accept such a thing. Hence it can't be implemented at all.

Conducting elections, delegating manpower, hours of paper work security personnel and other requirements is way more costly than implementing the blockchain into the system.
The blockchain would facilitate the process, save hours and ensure transparency.

In majority of countries the governments would not be excited about implementing such a transparent technology.
But it's good that the pubic are aware of other potentials in blockchain, and how it can improve their lives.

It can have both it's pros and cons,firstly it'll facilitate a free and fairer elections,as all the counting of votes,casting etc will all be recorded on the technology for all eyes to see which 100% eliminates the possibility of a breach of the records or an unpopular(not the people's choice) candidate being elected..
It's bad side could be it wouldn't protect voter anonymity,especially I'm countries that strive for such,as everyone will be privy to whosoever one voted for,and honestly in most cases user anonymity is required..
But in general it'll help to facilitate a transparent government and one that'll undisputedly reflect the people's choice/choosing

Nem block chain is one of the leading block chain who wants to spread the technology on election.
I think this is one good step for every government if they want a clean and smooth elections.
But of course there are some country who will not let it as they still want to control the government and their political intention.

At least you should have posted a link so that we can see how Russia is doing with Blockchain technology being used in voting.

(https://www.coinstaker.com/russia-blockchain-technology-electoral-process/)

Anyways, its kinda weird though. I personally don't think that they will allow such process because we all know that someone from their government wanted to stay at the office for so long and he will be exposed  if this technology will be used. Anyways, that another thread for political discussions.  ;D

@darewaller - how can it be costly when they can eliminate a lot of manual process in between? Of course with Blockchain Technology, those who have lost the election will simply need to accept it because everything is transparent and it can't be cheated by someone because the data is encrypted and immutable.

And with the way things are going gradually with some of these countries that you have mentioned, I believe there is so much more to come in the long run. We all know that the list of potentials for the blockchain technology cuts across so many sectors, which with the look of things will be almost all facets of life and when it comes to the political space, when it comes to transparency and accountability, following, counting and correlation of votes, we all know this is something that blockchain will easily solve.

It is a gradual process, and we are already beginning to see real life cases, even though the blockchain technology is still in its early stage, but I believe this is something that would really be utilized a lot in the poll space and what we are basically just seeing now is just a tip of the iceberg.

I am very sure this is one of the development and progress we will get to see with blockchain technology in the long run. Like you said, as time goes on and as people start seeing the real life need and usage of the blockchain technology, a lot of applications will start popping up and since it is obvious that the blockchain technology can really help in the area of identity, that is something that would really be of great relevance in the polling space.