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

As I journeyed through this “mysterious book” I came across a chapter that astounded me.

234 years ago, the First Presidential Election was conducted in the United States, and ever since then, systems have been created to make elections more human validating, through series of processes hindering democracy to this day. In hope and strength, citizens march to polling units 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 of electronic voting in the country, the electoral process is still marred with “vices” left untold.

What Is a Blockchain Voting System?

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

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 transferring control from a centralized entity, and consensus for security and stability.

A blockchain voting system hopes to ensure that votes can’t be modifiable, repudiable, and duplicable.

The hacker or any fraudster would need to have a consensus, which implies “forcing” 51% of the total nodes. Making 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 want to be that champion.” Those were the words of Hillary Clinton, the democrats, 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 had a hidden agenda. The Republican candidate Donald Trump won the election despite losing the popular vote by 2% but “Russia’s interference” was the most talked about event during the election. According to the US Intelligence Community, “the Russian government interfered in the election, with the goal of harming the campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the candidacy of Donald Trump”.  It was an operation named “Project Lakhta '' ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin. There were also reports by the senate intelligence committee that during the election, 50 election systems were targeted by Russia; attacks were triggered against “state election infrastructure” to search for vulnerabilities.

We received confirmation of 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 those infrastructures and then decided to cover tracks.

Could that be the explanation for the Republican’s victory in Wisconsin, a place the party hasn't won since 1984, or its victory in Pennsylvania and Michigan, which they also haven’t won since 1988?

Every story has two sides; the information shared regarding the events are the ones revealed by the government. There are lots of secrets hidden from the public. The Russian interference in the 2016 US election is an eye-opener to the need for a Blockchain voting system to be incorporated into the traditional voting systems, reducing human involvement in the electoral process.

Blockchain is a public ledger that cannot be changed, hacked, or destroyed. All transactions and activities are recorded, and verifiable 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 would maintain transparency in the electoral process reducing the personnel needed to conduct the election and also providing officials with nearly instant results.

Looking at the enormous benefits of the blockchain, building a voting system around it would help prevent voting fraud.

• Security: Every data on the blockchain is secured by advanced levels of encryption. Because the blockchain has decentralized abilities, No one can add, update or delete a network.

  
  

• Transparency: Transactions on the blockchain are recorded with time timestamps. It offers valid ledger transactions where information is stored. This means that every vote will surely count.

  
  

• Accessibility: Building a voting system with the blockchain will enable eligible voters to perform their civic duty anywhere in the world increasing participation in the electoral process.

  
  

• Immutability: The blockchain has the ability to maintain a permanent and unalterable ledger which means that 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 then encrypted, then broadcasted 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 stays there permanently and cannot be updated.

Many experts resist 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 elections just don’t fit that model"

Blockchain is a complex technology no doubt, but looking at issues emanating from traditional voting systems, drives the world toward the adoption of its use. It's only a matter of time.

You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.

- Malcolm X