The US 2020 Elections - Blockchain is the solution.
sourceIn two days there will be a the US elections for next president of the United States, members of House of representatives, and some of the senators. This is going to be one of the closely watched events globally. While many would argue this is one of the consequential elections in the history, I tent to think it is just elections as many we had before.
One of the questions it raises though is of important notice. Unlike previous elections, this one is going to have many mail-in ballots due to Covid-19 crisis. This has raised questions of potential frauds by the president Trump and republicans. It is highly possible that we may not know the results of the elections at the election night, on the November 3rd.
The troubling question many of us might have is why not? There has been ample time for government officials and those in charge of counting ballots to figure out ways to count the ballots in-person and by mail effectively and efficiently. Are they all so incompetent to take care of a simple business or are they just too corrupt to play games?
This all makes me think of how important of a role blockchain technology could play in improving the election process. Many seek transparency, lack of fraud, accuracy, and promptness of elections results. For a blockchain technology transparency is no brainer. It can take care of it easily, as all results are provided in a public ledger anybody can see and analyze.
Privacy is another important topic. While I personally don't think privacy is too important when votes are cast. Those in politics already know who votes how. They can buy all the data for their future campaigning purposes, and gerrymandering. They do it all the time. But still convention is votes are personal matter and everybody must be provided privacy. I am not sure how it could be done, since I am not a blockchain expert. But since blockchain utilized cryptography in its core, I am sure there could be solutions to provide fair privacy for voters.
As votes can be case using blockchain tech, it wouldn't take long time to wait for results and results can be available super quick. At the very least the same day. This can contribute to improving democratic processes.
The problem is governments are too slow to catch up with the advancement in technologies. Not only that, but the corruption and serving certain interest groups may also slow down utilizing such tech in election and political affairs. But one can hope one day we elect smarter people who can see benefits of technology in improving not only our everyday lives but also how we participate in politics with intent of improving democratic process. Blockchain, in my opinion, is a suitable solution.
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https://twitter.com/geekjen/status/1322826836263399424
Maybe politicians love a manipulable system, so blockchain would be a little awkward... nice post! Thanks for sharing
Most politicians do manipulate people. I have no doubt about that. More transparency would expose them.
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Microsoft (I know...) have an open source system called Election Guard. You can look it up on Github. It got discussed by Steve Gibson on Security Now here: https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-724.htm It did sound reasonable.
That is interesting. Thanks for sharing. Public ledger would be nice though for more transparency.
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I would definitely embed blockchain tech for elections and the fraud itself these times around is Covid19 itself. It's bigger than potential elections fraud and it affects the world on way deeper levels than any election. The way I see it both candidates are puppets to play the game of the bankers as it has happened for many years. The problem is that such uncertainty and fraud suspicions are putting pressure on financial markets.
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I mostly agree. Not sure they are puppets though.
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Blockchain being utilized for elections seems like a no brainer but as you pointed out governments are slow to catch up with tech advances. To me, the current automated system is hard to trust. Anything electronic can be hacked or manipulated with a program I'm sure. I don't know how to solve the privacy issue either but it doesn't seem like it would be that difficult for someone in that industry to solve. I wonder how private the current system is really. There must be a way to look up a persons vote (at least your own) as it is now?
https://twitter.com/Bhattg18/status/1322888033801220100
Interestingly enough it could be privacy projects like Monero that could be used as a template to make something like this happen. There are 2 attack vectors to blockchain voting (and just voting in general):
It's hard to confirm someone's identity and give them privacy at the same time.
I think decentralization is up to the task.
Might take a decade to catch on though.
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