Voting is ripe for disruption from Blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
Whether in local, state-wide, or national elections, voting has never been more crucial to democracy. And yet the industry is riddled with vulnerabilities and inefficiencies. The website BitIQ (Official site) will assist traders in their bitcoin journey with the best trading tools, fast payouts, and phenomenal customer support. The power and security of Blockchain might be the breakthrough technology that fundamentally alters the voting process as we know it provides a solution to some of our most challenging societal issues. Through the power of Blockchain, democracy will be more secure, transparent, and reliable.
The linkage between blockchain and voting systems is evident when you consider that various entities are involved in the voting process, from citizens to political candidates to poll workers, election officials, and more. And each party has a vested interest — their unique perspective on how valuable or problematic the current voting process is. Using blockchain technology, however, each application could lock onto the same encrypted information for your identity and individual preferences, making hacking far more complex.
Voters could use a blockchain-based platform to vote directly on candidates and issues. The beneficiaries include political parties and their respective candidates. Of course, this system is far from perfect yet; many improvements have to be made—but one thing is sure, Blockchain’s potential in elections could make our overall democracy more robust in the long run.
The many ways in which blockchain technology can augment and improve the voting process are too numerous to list here, but a few examples include:
The anonymity of voting:
Lack of public information about potential voters makes fraud in US elections easy; voting is completed and results reported via an immutable audit trail on a blockchain ledger; voting periods could be extended from one day to multiple weeks, depending on individual votes submitted by each citizen.
Blockchain could provide a way to secure and verify votes cast by people who cannot make it to the polling station because of illness or disability, serving as an equalizer for the franchise. Without intermediaries who have a financial incentive to “undo” the vote (for example, precincts that allowed for absentee ballots), meaningful elections results can be achieved by companies even with low voter turnout;
– The government can eliminate voter fraud by confirming voter identity. Rather than using expensive, poll-based technology like some US states require today, a decentralized ledger could eliminate the need for paper ballots and electronic voting machines, lowering costs;
– Native cryptocurrencies bring with them their next generation of transparency and accountability. Imagine all election-related documents stored on a blockchain: campaign finance disclosures, petition signatures, voting records — all with impossible metadata to alter. A lot also depends on the timing.
While Blockchain is already being used in a few places to help people vote, we must act before a single point of failure (like a hack) becomes manifest before taking action. We are witnessing the most revolutionary technological breakthrough since the internet: think about what Blockchain means for housing. Incredibly, it took this long for us to realize what’s available when we connect with others online and how much better our lives would be without intermediaries and centralized control.
– Voting is ripe for disruption from Blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
In theory, Blockchain — without centralized control — can provide a way to secure and verify votes cast by people who cannot make it to the polling station because of illness or disability, serving as an equalizer for the franchise.
Blockchain brings about exciting new possibilities for how voting can be done and how we oversee such processes in our democracy today by providing transparency, trust, and efficiency through distributed ledgers that are open to everyone yet completely secure. In the US, the elections industry has been described as “the Wild West” due to a lack of a uniform national framework or set of standards.
The decentralized nature of blockchain-enabled voting — which companies could build on top of existing state electoral frameworks — would eliminate the need for a new federal bureaucracy and ensure that all regions of the country are covered.
A national blockchain-enabled voting platform would empower individuals and organizations to create their ballots, vote online, and ensure that results are auditable. It would also drastically reduce costs associated with elections by eliminating the need for expensive polling places and paper ballots/electronic voting machines. It is vital in countries like Sierra Leone, where, because of the high cost of voting, many citizens don’t vote because they can’t afford it.
Summary:
What Blockchain can do for democracy is beyond stunning; it is the future of how we will vote to choose our leaders. But unfortunately, we cannot afford to continue moving forward with a failing system that leaves us vulnerable to fraud and tampering.
