Maintaining Voting Integrity using Blockchain

Abstract

The potentials of using blockchains and distributed ledgers to support voting processes have attracted significant attention in the electronic voting community. Most of these recent ideas are centered on blockchain-based e-voting protocols. Others focus on how blockchain can be exploited to simultaneously deliver auditability and anonymity of voters in the voting process. A common feature of these research efforts is the use of blockchain within e-voting contexts. We elaborate in this work the integrity requirements that must be supported by blockchain in online voting as well as offline voting prevalent in developing countries. The framework conditions for blockchain-based voting are also discussed.

Peace engineering: The contribution of blockchain systems to the e-voting process

“…The authors considered a political paradox relating to the use of technology such as a blockchain and its contribution to democracy and social peace in ensuring the transparency of election processes. For example, it could worsen the current political system in a non-democratic society by increasing the level of control over the population ( Adeshina and Ojo, 2019 ; Shahzad and Crowcroft, 2019 ; De Filippi, 2018 ; Hofman and Novin, 2018 ). Indeed, one of the main concerns highlighted during the interviews was the potential integrity of the holder of the technology.…”

“…Blockchain developers and researchers have identified voting process issues where solutions are needed: a) public verifiability—the public's ability to verify the entire process and election results; b) individual verifiability—the ability of voters to verify their voting, for example, through their ballot; c) auditability—the ability of a third party to audit the results of an election; d) anonymity, e) transparency—the ability of blockchain to guarantee the openness of the voting procedure ( Hardwick et al., 2018 ; Liu and Wang, 2017 ). Adeshina and Ojo (2019) discuss two emerging streams of research on blockchain applications in e-voting. The first stream analyzes the use of blockchain for e-voting as a process, such as blockchain-based e-voting, which was launched in Moscow in 2014.…”

“…The other stream looks at the use of blockchain for non-intrusively supporting e-voting; in other words, supporting voting processes as a trusted third party involving the three main actors in elections: (1) all eligible voters; (2) organizers in charge of the election, who verify and record eligible voters’ information, and interact with voters during the election; and, finally, (3) the inspectors who ensure the limitation of the organizers’ power ( Liu and Wang, 2017 ). Blockchain-based e-voting can ensure part of the job usually done by organizers and inspectors using decentralized, anonymous, and transparent protocols, as the system grants self-tallying ( Adeshina and Ojo, 2019 ; Liu and Wang, 2017 ).…”

Blockchain for Electronic Voting System—Review and Open Research Challenges

“…A “democratic” system is defined if only eligible voters can vote, and only a single vote can be cast for each registered voter [ 55 ]. Another function is that no one else should be able to duplicate the vote.…”

ADEVA: A Decentralized Electronic Voting Application Using Blockchain Technology

“…Intercommunication between nodes is via encrypted multicast or broadcast. The votes are stored in bundles of records called blocks, which are chained together using a hash function to form a ledger [33], [46]. Fig.…”