What are the requirements of a free and fair election?

Voters today demand greater transparency in their elections. Two-and-a-half years ago, Agora’s team set out to build a blockchain voting system that succeeds where traditional systems have struggled. Through this process, we have developed a template of characteristics that we believe are necessary for election results to be trusted.

According to Agora, a free and fair election must minimally satisfy the following requirements:

Transparency. Each step of the election process should be easily understood and open to scrutiny by all stakeholders (voters, political parties, outside observers and others). All results should be independently verifiable and auditable.

Privacy. The choices that each voter makes should remain private both during and after the election.

Integrity. Only eligible voters should be allowed to vote, and those votes must be protected from any alteration or exclusion.

Affordability. The election process must be affordable to governments and its citizens in order to maintain sovereignty.

Accessibility. All eligible voters, regardless of location, group membership or disability, should have reasonable and equal opportunity to cast their ballot.

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Read more about each of these points in our whitepaper. Agora is committed to spreading free and fair elections around the world, and the characteristics we have just outlined are important focus areas of our technology. We welcome you to join our mission by engaging in our community and spreading the word by hitting the *clap* button below.