Using of Blockchain in Election

[plvbob0070]

One usage of blockchain technology is for voting yet the majority still doesn't use blockchain technology during elections.

"India’s citizens will soon be able to cast votes from outside their city of registration thanks to a blockchain-based system."

Every election, we encounter some citizens who don't vote because of their reasons. It's either they don't want any candidate or they can't vote because they're living far from the voting places.

"The commissioner said that regulators are collaborating with the Indian Institute of Technology to develop a blockchain system that would allow citizens to vote remotely."

This can help those who have a problem with the distance from their house to the voting place and it's also a way to prevent multiple votings.

Source:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/indias-citizens-will-vote-with-blockchain-election-commissioner-says

The plan of using blockchain technology in voting is to make it more convenient for others and to make it fraud-proof. During elections, we can really see a lot of things happening, especially for those candidates who really want to win so they will manipulate the result. But with blockchain, it will be hard for them to change and manipulate it. With this, we can achieve more transparency when it comes to the votes.

As a concerned citizen, I know what my country is facing, and I feel bad for our situation because those who don't deserve to be in the position are sitting prettily in their thrones. I really think that the different governments should try exploring this technology to help them because it will totally make things easier and more accurate than the usual system where they can cheat. The government shouldn't be afraid of trying it unless they want to manipulate the results.

Photo not mine

Blockchain can be used in various field and one of that is voting. Although voting is one of blockchain's main usage, not everyone knew nor even aware of it. That's why further practices and studies should be done so they can maximize the use of blockchain technology. Just like what I have said, with this technology, it'll be easier to collect votes and it can't be easily manipulated by someone. I only have limited knowledge about the use-cases of blockchain and I still studying it.



PS: I'm not posting this to promote the site, I just want to share the news with everyone. Thank you!

[jackg]

Yeah blockchain voting isn't a very good idea. The issue is that someone can get hold of someone else's keys or companies could ask their staff to hand keys over or something else like that - which may go unreported...


Actually, why can't people vote in other towns? My firend voted in an election for a country 10000 miles from here by handing his ballot to the ambassador so not being able to merely move a registration from one twon to the next is rediculous.

In the UK (and probably other systems, votes are counted like this):
[quote link=https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/gla_migrate_files_destination/archives/assembly-reports-general-counting-the-vote.pdf]
3.1 Votes cast at any government election, general, regional, or local have traditionally been hand counted. The process is complex and laborious.
  • At the close of the polling stations each ballot box is sealed, and a statement of the number of ballot papers issued is attached.
  • The boxes are then transported to counting centres, emptied and sorted before hand counting begins by volunteers.
  • The number of votes recorded at the count is cross checked with the number of ballot papers issued, and any discrepancies are immediately investigated by the Returning Officer.
  • For ballot papers that are not clearly marked, have indeterminate markings or may be spoilt, adjudication takes place by the returning officer in consultation with political party agents.
  • Once the votes are collated the returning officer ‘declares’ the result of the election. 

3.2 Simply put, the electronic counting of votes (e-counting) replaces counting by people by counting by machines.
  • When the ballot boxes arrive at the count centres they are emptied and the ballot papers are fed into large scanners that check the authenticity of the papers, read off the votes cast and accumulate the votes electronically.
  • The number of ballot papers counted through the scanners is reconciled with the numbers tagged to the box.
  • If the scanners reject ballot papers because they have indeterminate markings or are spoiled then adjudication takes place by the returning officer.
  • Once the votes are collated the returning officer ’declares‘ the result of the election.
[/quote]

If there machine is airgapped it'd be pretty impossible to hack it without being present in the same room as it and the counting is normally done in either public galleries or under the watchful eyes of teams of volunteers. It'd be hard to fake the result and probably not worth the effort (in at least several hundred counting centres).

[Twentyonepaylots]

One usage of blockchain technology is for voting yet the majority still doesn't use blockchain technology during elections.

"India’s citizens will soon be able to cast votes from outside their city of registration thanks to a blockchain-based system."

Every election, we encounter some citizens who don't vote because of their reasons. It's either they don't want any candidate or they can't vote because they're living far from the voting places.

"The commissioner said that regulators are collaborating with the Indian Institute of Technology to develop a blockchain system that would allow citizens to vote remotely."

This can help those who have a problem with the distance from their house to the voting place and it's also a way to prevent multiple votings.

Source:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/indias-citizens-will-vote-with-blockchain-election-commissioner-says

The plan of using blockchain technology in voting is to make it more convenient for others and to make it fraud-proof. During elections, we can really see a lot of things happening, especially for those candidates who really want to win so they will manipulate the result. But with blockchain, it will be hard for them to change and manipulate it. With this, we can achieve more transparency when it comes to the votes.

As a concerned citizen, I know what my country is facing, and I feel bad for our situation because those who don't deserve to be in the position are sitting prettily in their thrones. I really think that the different governments should try exploring this technology to help them because it will totally make things easier and more accurate than the usual system where they can cheat. The government shouldn't be afraid of trying it unless they want to manipulate the results.

Photo not mine

Blockchain can be used in various field and one of that is voting. Although voting is one of blockchain's main usage, not everyone knew nor even aware of it. That's why further practices and studies should be done so they can maximize the use of blockchain technology. Just like what I have said, with this technology, it'll be easier to collect votes and it can't be easily manipulated by someone. I only have limited knowledge about the use-cases of blockchain and I still studying it.



PS: I'm not posting this to promote the site, I just want to share the news with everyone. Thank you!

If they are planning to use blockchain technology for other things aside cryptocurrency then it will be a good news not only for cryotcurrency but technological progress as a whole. This just goes to show how powerful and capable this form of technology is. Given that it's really secure and could span out distances like a hot knife cutting through butter is amazing and could be one of the greatest inventions of our century. We just need a considerable amount of experts to notice the uses and benefits of implementing blockchain technology and the rest will follow. Really cool news.

[coupable]

Yes, the technology of blockchain is a useful tool to fairly moderate an election [Public ledger].
I just try not to be off topic.
As "blockchain" is like many other technologies (methods) used to run an election. It can be used for great wills but can be also manupilated for oriented purposes.
If we can specify what kind of elections we want to use a powerful tech like "Blockchain", then it would be easier to determine if we can properly use it for good help. Otherwise, it's technically possible, but it's far from being that honest.

BTW, faking results can be easly made in almost the majrity types of elections even with a blockchain inplementation [i mean elections in large scales].

[hatshepsut93]

Electronic voting is bad - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI

Blockchain can't fix it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs&t

If some country said that they'll implement blockchain voting, I'd be really worried about potential voting fraud. I won't even be surprised if in some near future dictators like Putin will use blockchain to "prove" the world that they are fairly elected. The US quite recently demonstrated how messy electronic voting can be, and blockchain could make it even worse.

Blockchain also introduces a lot of new attack surface, because its still an unproven technology. Everyone remembers the DAO fiasco, now imagine an election getting hacked and forced to be re-run, wasting millions.

[jseverson]

The US quite recently demonstrated how messy electronic voting can be, and blockchain could make it even worse.

Well they've also had a successful limited test run with mobile blockchain voting, which is something I suppose:

One method of enabling online voting has been to use applications based on blockchain, the peer-to-peer technology that employs encryption and a write-once, append-many electronic ledger to allow private and secure registration information and ballots to be transmitted over the internet. Over the past two years, West Virginia, Denver and Utah County, Utah have all used blockchain-based mobile apps to allow military members and their families living overseas to cast absentee ballots using an iPhone.

[...]

A third-party audit conducted by the National Cybersecurity Center (NCC) and Denver Election Divisions showed that votes cast over the blockchain application were recorded and tabulated accurately. The final numbers showed that voter turnout doubled from the 2015 election and a post-election survey from the Denver Elections Division found that 100% of respondents said they favored secure mobile voting over all methods available to them.

I know the sample size is incredibly small, but the fact that it actually worked could also mean that it can scale. I completely agree that deploying it in a large scale immediately is a horrible idea, but a few breakthroughs here and there could make them plausible in the future.

[Ucy]

Interesting. But I think this sort of thing should be built transparently and by everyone. Things like election hardware and materials need to be open sourced and probably built by the community. I don't really believe that non open source hardware should be trusted in decentralized communities. Hopefully crypto communities will begin to depend more on open source hardware and less on hardware that aren't transparently built. 
A true Blockchain election could still be abused in centralized settings

[Natalim]

If they can perfect the system using the blockchain for election then I would say this is the best method to be use in election.
Everyone of us just want to see real transparency as we all know that blockchain are transparent, so I'd go with this as long as it's carefully studied to protect the real result of the voting.

I have not enough technical knowledge on blockchain but I think blockchain are suppose to be transparent so it's a better system compared to the system a certain company created which are centralized and controlled by them, it's like a business of trust but blockchain is more transparent, so which one we should choose.

[fiulpro]

Unfortunately this is a good idea but how are you gonna talk with people who doesn't even own mobiles and all ?
Considering the country of India itself.
Population of India is 1.339 billion
269 million people are living below poverty and this is only the governmental estimation .
Most recently 66.40% of the Voters Voted according to the old norms .
Also one should consider how blockchain is not completely hidden , it is rather a serious matter In certain states , the reason the identity of a person is hidden is too serious for us to understand completely.

Let it be hidden, I would say .

[btc_angela]

As far as I can remember, Japan did a similar blockchain voting, but I assumed it is just a test, In a First, Japanese City Deploys Online Blockchain Voting System.

But I don't know if this is going to be an effective tool for lets say third world countries with a huge population. I think we need further study about this one, and weigh everything before being implemented to a major elections.

[tvplus006]

In Ukraine, a test vote was conducted on the basis of Blockchain back in 2018. This test was conducted in conjunction with the TEAM Foundation, which provided the XEM cryptocurrency for transactions. The NEM blockchain was also used in the 2014 Ukrainian Presidential elections to preserve the protocols of election commissions.

[beerlover]

Of course, blockchain could be a great system but you are forgetting that almost all the political leading parties of the world know the fact that they are not liked as soon as they take up offices, that is why they try to meddle with the elections as much as possible, if all nations had 100% voting with all the information out on the open with absolutely no election fraud at all, that would result with elections going to a different party every single time, this is not about left or right or anything else, whoever is the leader at that moment will lose their seat next election and whoever wins that will lose after that because politicians are politicians and they will never be loved by the 100% of their nations.

That is why I doubt anyone will be making blockchain voting something common in the world, there could be part applications but it will never be 100% blockchain based.

[Arcas]

Good ideas when blockchain technology adpted in election system, right now many countries always use bad system when election time, we do not know who is the winner because system look old and not allowing with digital technology era.

[Averim]

It's a good appliance for block technology, everything is more transparent, each vote ca be traced and, i guess, it's more democratic compared to the traditional way.

[Zemomtum]

Apart from the distance which might not make some people vote, another major reason is their vote might not get counted due to some malpractice but nobody can do that with blockchain. It will be good if this can be adopted by the Government of all categories for a fair and free election. People will be more than willing to cast their vote since there is a high degree that it will get counted

[tabas]

At the very first view of it, we can see the good points of it but until it hasn't been tested and tried, we will not see the other implications of it.
There's pros and cons of it but we would like to see a partial trial of it or probably with an official election even from company's board of election to see how the results are and then next to the possible true election of government officials.

[Hydrogen]

Electronic voting is a real world application utilized in elections for decades now. Its not a theoretical vaporware pipedream scenario, in the way that many seem to mistakenly believe current day voting systems are still exclusively paper trail based. Its a common and ubiquitous aspect of elections and politics throughout the world. Blockchain based systems can carry advantages in insuring the integrity of data, if they are implemented correctly. And if they are complimented by solid end user authentication systems such as voters being required to provide ID to vote.

India itself may be too polarized a setting to implement a secure electronic based voting system.

There are too many conflicting political interests for something as important as a national voting system to be developed independently without some bias being built into it. I think for something like this to work, it would need to be developed and implemented independently by someone who can objectively look at things and ensure the design fits the theory of how such a thing should be built.

[Thekool1s]

@hatshepsut93 I saw the 2nd video, Tom made a couple of interesting points which I do agree on but right at the end, he went on to promote Dashlane... LMAO... Kinda seems ironic, he gave an example of a man hearing your voting result and saying just Trust me... Same is the case with Dashlane, Let us generate these "Random" passwords for you and let us handle it in the CLOUD... What can go wrong LOL... Anyway, I still want to point out that there is no benefit of using Blockchain if the public won't participate in "mining". If the "mining" is being done by the Electoral Commission, there is nothing stopping them to manipulate the blockchain, Basically do the 51% attack themselves... Unless you can make your voters participate in the "mining" which will be a monumental task to pull off... there is no way of proving that the results weren't manipulated even if the blockchain is used and by making your voters the miners this opens up another can of worms which is these people will most likely be mining on PCs infected by malware and other backdoors so yeah I agree with Tom, Electronic voting is not easy to pull off and we should stay away from it for now at least...

[Debonaire217]

Perhaps, if the world isn't using blockchain based voting systems which has the capability to make the most secured voting system, there is a problem within the body that approves the use of it in the country. There might be a reason that politicians themselves doesn't really want to have this kind of system in a sense that they don't want an absolute system that maintains integrity and for them to have the chance to fabricate voting results. In some other reason, it might need additional time to beta test to ensure that the system would work.

[Strongkored]

There must be a research to actually use blockchain technology in voting, it could be that what is targeted or expected from use it not as easy as tought.
One of the goals is to minimize manipulate voting but using the blockchain the chance still exists becuase it could be that the voters are not the actual voters.
Sometimes the traditional way is far more effective to resolve a case than forcing a technology to be applied which may not be suitable in that case.
My country should be the first country to use it, but the problem is harder than using the old system because citizen or area that far away from election place also not yet familiar with cellphone and the internet connections.