Blockchain in Election (Voting)
As elections are approaching in a year in central as well as the state, our focus of attention is shifting towards technology. Its prime responsibility of a citizen to know about the candidate and vote. He/she should also check how secure our voting systems are and how technology can be used to secure them.
A few months back Election Commission of India conducted Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) hackathon because of the rise in allegations of EVM tampering. These allegations by political parties have definitely planted the seeds of mistrust among the people. And there are certain studies which say that one can easily manipulate the hardware and software of EVM.
In the past 2 years, the one word which we are crossing in our daily life is “BLOCKCHAIN”. Everyone thinks it will the change the tech world. But most of us think blockchain is for finance only and most of the research done is also in the finance field. I accept it has a greater advantage in the financial sector but it also has other uses. One such usage is in supply chain management and slowly, people are implementing blockchain in that field also. Recently, a company called de Beers has started building a supply chain for diamond.
For a very long time, we used the paper-based voting system. And it’s only a decade back when we shifted to EVM, considering it as the safest one. But it has been proved that even that can be manipulated. As we are moving towards Digital India why can’t we conduct digital voting? This post speaks about the same, the use of blockchain technology in the election.
One of the major concern for going towards a digital voting system is security. In the present world everything in digital space is at stake. There are numerous examples like posting of the aadhaar no. of a bureaucrat in India, by hackers. This is where the idea of using blockchain technology in election arises.
Blockchain is a distributed database where each transaction forms a chain of block. It is difficult for hackers to hack the block as each of them are interlinked. If someone wants to change something already recorded he has to hack those millions of block simultaneously. Even if someone tries, the other users will notice the change. Blockchain is public and anyone can check the blocks for validation.
And hacking all those million user computers, at the same time, is near impossible.
In the US president election, Russian hackers helped Trump to win the election. And in 2016, there was a leak of personal information in Turkey. This online leak contained details of people including the prime minister and president of the country. All such incidents can be avoided in future.
How Blockchain technology can be used in digital voting:
Blockchain technology is transparent and distributed where anyone can check the data getting recorded. Usually, the central authority manages the voting process — recording and checking i.e. counting of votes. But, in Blockchain based voting, all tasks will be automatic. The database will record the votes, count and will keep updating the results. Anyone can access the copy of the record, that will be saved in the database. This is the advantage that no one can change the registered vote.
No one can add illegitimate voters as all the connected users do simultaneous verification of the data. User’s privacy is also protected as all the database has is a number. Another database will store the number of registered IDs. So, this system of two platforms will check if someone votes more than once.
Moreover, it is not a new concept. Countries like South Korea, Sierra Leone and Virginia already tested a pilot project of digital voting through blockchain and succeeded.
If it’s possible there then, definitely we can also try. In a country like India where users of smartphone is increasing day by day (expected to reach 478 million by this year-end, as per IAMAI) and everyone has a Unique Aadhaar ID, it is feasible to use blockchain. It can be a tool for fighting against voter fraud and authenticity of voting can also be increased.
We already have an e-KYC system where data of most of the people are recorded and it’s made mandatory too. The basic infrastructure is available and we now, need a proper research on the field to implement blockchain. Investments in technology are also increasing. As of 2016, there are 32 blockchain firms in India as per PwC.
Because of the encryption mechanism, it is almost impossible to control the network without taking control of the entire network. As the threat to the current system is also increasing, it is good to test the technology. And it is also evident that the use of blockchain for election in future is not so far.
