Can blockchain save US elections?
Its challenging times indeed. US Postal Service (USPS) is warning that mail-in votes might nor arrive on time to be counted. At the time of writing this article, democrats have pushed a $25 Billion dollar bill to support postal service. However, it is still yet to be seen whether the Republican-controlled Senate will pass or block the bill.
As the pandemic rages on, the challenge to hold US elections is very real. There will be huge pressure on the mail-in votes. Especially when President Trump is already laying blames on the postal system, and even is trying to shut down USPS.
Amid all these chaos, USPS published a patent for blockchain-based mail-in voting system on August 13th. It provides a detailed overview of system, that separates the voter’s identity with the votes and thus providing privacy. Let me admit that I have not analysed the patent, but let us investigate the concept itself.
Can blockchain save the day? Probably not this time. However, there are some compelling arguments for using blockchain as strong as the ones not to use it. We will explore a few of those arguments in this article.
First of all, why blockchain? Don’t you want to have the convenience to vote from home, maybe over a period of few days and have the choice to change your vote last minute? Don't you want to check at any point of time make sure that your vote had been tallied correctly? (Yes that is a luxury today and that is the reason why recounting votes exist) And also don't you want to see that the process was conducted squarely and fairly throughout the country?
There are currently a few interesting companies working on the concept such as Democracy Earth, Votem, Voatz to name a few. Here in Australia, we even have Flux, a party that is committed to leverage blockchain’s promise of decentralisation to re-imagine democracy.
At its core, these start-ups use cryptography to verify and tally the votes and use blockchain as the data layer that stores the proof of these votes. However, there are significant hoops that these and any online systems needs to jump through before they are used in the public arena. According to US Vote Foundation, such systems need to be:
1. End-to-end verifiable: Ability to verify the votes have been recorded and tallied correctly
2. Secure: The system must withstand potential attacks and maintain the integrity of the election process while keeping the user's data private
3. Usable: Solution much be familiar and adaptable both by the end-users and the election officials, rather than introducing novel or complex processes
4. Transparent: The ability to provide evidence to the public and observers that the process was conducted properly
The most interesting part to note here is that the end-to-end verifiability of the system will be through cryptography and blockchain is not necessarily a part of that solution. Then what are the arguments for blockchain in the election process?
The strongest argument to use the more expensive (compared to non-blockchain tech) is the trust that blockchain brings to the process. The potential of blockchain is to radically decentralise the entire process, truly putting the control of the process in the hands of the people. It is not a simple task to design and validate the process, but given how we have overcome hard problems in the past, it is reasonable that we will figure it out in the near future.
The record of the transactions in the blockchain is immutable. It means the voting history can stand up to the scrutiny of time and can expose any manipulation that might have crept in. It would be almost impossible to tamper with the process on the blockchain without leaving traces and once these transactions are recorded, it is recorded forever and cannot be changed or deleted.
And lastly, blockchain will open up true peer-to-peer digital voting and the radical ways in which the voting process can be revolutionised. Once the infrastructure is in place, it can be used for many more voting events, with sparing only a little more money and effort. Referendums and approval ratings can take an entirely new form and how they influence policymaking. In short, blockchain can upgrade democracy itself.
So if blockchain is this good, why the world is not running to embrace the blockchain solution for voting? This is because of several factors including the lack of proven solutions, the maturity of blockchain technology and lack of fundamental infrastructure to support decentralisation.
All the solutions that have come out of blockchain are at the bleeding edge of the technology and it will take time before it is proven at a smaller scale, where the flaws of the existing solutions are exposed and designed are made better. It is yet to be seen how a solution that is open-sourced and yet reasonably tamperproof will be developed for such a crucial process as voting.
Another key missing piece is the identity on the blockchain. This has been a key topic for a topic a long time where a lot of significant progress has been made. However, it is yet to be seen what standards would emerge and how the digital identity will evolve on the blockchain. Some interesting projects such as Civic have been developing really promising models on how this identity piece will be resolved in a blockchain fashion
Finally, one of the key issues is the user experience of a blockchain solution. There are potential cryptographic solutions to securely transact votes, but it is also very complex for mass adoption. Such processes often involve multiple pairs of keys, peculiar transactions, complex verifications and convoluted processes.
If something as fundamental as voting has to adopt a new solution, it should be easy and familiar for all the section of society. Hence, even after development, blockchain voting will remain as an additional, more advanced way to vote, that will co-exist with other traditional, solutions for the foreseeable future.
This is one of the reasons why we at AlphaWallet are working to make blockchain more easy, intuitive and usable for users from all walks of life. We are creating an open-source wallet and an open-source technology that will make tokens more intuitive for the user, token issuers and developers.
Conclusion
Blockchain holds the potential to make elections transparent and more democratic process. However, it will be a few years before the technology, the infrastructure and the ecosystem would be developed to take on national elections. But that day is coming and when that comes it will also bring a lot of new opportunities to improve governance and democratic processes.
