Decentralized Blockchain Voting System: Unraveling a Chapter in America’s Book of Secrets

by Arthur · October 25, 2022

As I traveled through this “mysterious book” I came across a chapter that amazed me.

234 years ago the first presidential election was held in the United States, and ever since then systems have been created to make elections more humanly validating, through a series of processes that hinder democracy to this day. In hope and strength, citizens march to polling stations every election year, hoping to elect the “right candidate”, but do their votes really count?

Over the years, we have witnessed a paradigm shift in technological development, industries continue to innovate in line with technology, and even with the widespread electronic voting in the country, the electoral process is still characterized by “vices” that are not told.

Table of Contents

What is a Blockchain Voting System?

The idea of a blockchain voting system is to have a secure, transparent voting platform that leverages blockchain technology; where all eligible citizens can perform their civic duties without worrying about fraud and other electoral challenges. To break this down, there is a need to first understand what blockchain really is.

Blockchain is a distributed ledger system that promotes decentralization, transparency and data integrity. It uses three main principles; cryptography for privacy and confidentiality, decentralization for the transfer of control from a centralized entity, and consensus for safety and stability.

A blockchain voting system hopes to ensure that votes cannot be altered, rejected and duplicated.

The hacker or fraudster must have a consensus, which involves “forcing” 51% of the total nodes. Make these actions impossible for the hackers. This advantage combined with transparency makes the blockchain the best option for a voting system.”

@CosminGherase

Russia’s hack?

“Every American needs a champion, and I will be that champion.” Those were the words of Hillary Clinton, the Democrat, before the 2016 US presidential election.

It was a fierce battle between the two major political parties. They all had their plans mapped out, but it seems one of them had a hidden agenda. Republican candidate Donald Trump won the election despite losing the popular vote by 2%, but “Russia’s meddling” was the most talked about event of the election. According to the US Intelligence Community, “the Russian government interfered in the election, with the goal of damaging the campaign of Hillary Clinton, and strengthening the candidacy of Donald Trump.” It was an operation called “Project Lakhta” ordered directly by Russian President Vladimir Putin. There were also reports from the Senate Intelligence Committee that during the election, 50 election systems were targeted by Russia; attacks were launched against “government election infrastructure” to search for vulnerabilities.

We got confirmation on Hillary Clinton’s hacked email and the attempted attack on election infrastructure, but what if the attack on those infrastructures was actually successful? I mean Russia could have infiltrated these infrastructures and then decided to cover their tracks.

Could that explain the Republican victory in Wisconsin, a seat the party has not won since 1984, or the victory in Pennsylvania and Michigan, which they have not won since 1988?

Every story has two sides; the information shared about the incidents are those disclosed by the authorities. There are many secrets hidden from the public. The Russian interference in the 2016 US election is an eye-opener for the need for a Blockchain voting system to be incorporated into the traditional voting systems, reducing human involvement in the election process.

Blockchain is a public ledger that cannot be altered, hacked or destroyed. All transactions and activities are registered and verified on the blockchain

Can a Blockchain Voting System Prevent Voting Fraud?

A decentralized blockchain voting system would make votes nearly impossible to tamper with. A blockchain protocol will maintain transparency in the election process, reduce the personnel needed to conduct the election and also provide officials with near-instant results.

Looking at the huge benefits of blockchain, building a voting system around it will help prevent vote fraud.

Safety: All data on the blockchain is secured with advanced levels of encryption. Because the blockchain has decentralized capabilities, no one can add, update or delete a network.
Transparency: Transactions on the blockchain are recorded with time stamps. It offers valid ledger transactions where information is stored. That means every vote will definitely count.
Availability: Building a voting system with the blockchain will enable voters to perform their civic duties anywhere in the world and increase participation in the electoral process.
Immutability: The blockchain has the ability to maintain a permanent and immutable ledger that means voters’ information and records cannot be tampered with.

Framework: Decentralized Blockchain Voting System

The image above shows a detailed architecture for a blockchain voting system, “a consensus process on a blockchain mechanism that validates each encrypted vote and the public record of each vote on the distributed copies of the blockchain ledger”.

When a voter completes registration, the details are encrypted, then broadcast to every node in the network, which is then verified. Once a user in a block is added to a chain of other verified users, it remains there permanently and cannot be updated.

Many experts oppose the idea of building a decentralized blockchain voting system. Microsoft cryptographer John Benaloh believes “Blockchains are a very interesting and useful technology for distributed consensus where there is no central authority. But choice just doesn’t fit that model”

Blockchain is a complex technology no doubt, but looking at problems that come from traditional voting systems is driving the world towards adopting its use. It is only a matter of time.