Blockchain and fair voting.
Intensive technological development has a strong impact on the modernization of democratic institutions. Various innovations in the field of digital communications have also affected the rather traditional sphere of popular voting. The widespread adoption of distributed registry technology has had a particular impact on the rethinking of their organization process. Distributed registries have gained the greatest popularity with the use of blockchain technology. Despite the fact that initially this technology was considered exclusively as an element of the development of the industry of information and then financial technologies, at the present stage it is gradually becoming more widespread in other spheres of human activity due to the high degree of security and confidentiality.
Today we will look at the world practice of using this technology in popular voting. Separately, we will analyze the technical solutions used in the most actively developing projects aimed at developing their own software for electronic voting using blockchain technology.
One of the key phenomena determining the development of both modern technologies and society as a whole in recent years is decentralization. This term is not new, for the first time the idea of three varieties of communication systems was put forward by the American scientist Paul Baran in 1964. Along with centralized and decentralized communication systems, the researcher proposed the idea of another variety of them-a a distributed system. The key idea of a distributed communications system (peer-to-peer) is the absence of a single decision-making center (server), which directly communicate with each other, forming a single network. The term “distributed registries “is inextricably linked to a broader term — “distributed communication systems”, which entered into scientific use relatively recently.
Despite the rapid development of distributed communication systems in recent years, the first successful examples of its implementation have existed for a relatively long time. Widely known examples of its use were the file-sharing peer-to-peer network for music sharing Napster and the BitTorrent data exchange Protocol (BitTorrent Inc.).
In the social and political sphere, one of the first applications of distributed registry technology was the Firechat messenger, which became world-famous during the protests in Hong Kong in 2014. Protesters coordinated their actions in messengers on mobile devices, after which the authorities decided to restrict access to the Internet. In response, the protesters created their own distribution network of smartphones without an Internet connection.
A well-known project for the use of distributed registries at the state level is e-Estonia, in which Estonian residents have gained access to a number of electronic services. A distributed registry provides a link between the public and private sectors, allowing for rapid and open delivery of complex services.
Distributed registries have gained the greatest popularity with the use of blockchain technology. Blockchain is a “distributed database that contains information about all transactions (more generally — communications) conducted by all participants of the system. Information is stored in the form of “chains of blocks”, each of which contains a certain number of communications.” For the first time, the description of this technology was contained in the article “Bitcoin: a Peer-to-Peer Electronic cash system”. Thus, this technology allows you to organize any transfer of information in the blockchain. Each of these blocks contains information about the other blocks, which allows you to distribute the data on the system and track all changes. There is no single place where a complete list of system member records is stored because the registry is maintained by all system members at the same time and is automatically updated to the latest version every time a change is made. Currently, there are a huge number of varieties of this technology. The most famous is the blockchains Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Despite the fact that initially this technology was considered exclusively as an element of the development of the industry of information and then financial technologies, at the present stage it is gradually becoming more widespread in other spheres of human activity due to the high degree of security and privacy, and also allows you to effectively reduce costs. Trends in the development and implementation of blockchain technology in the last few years have not only begun to enter into the plans of research teams and business structures but have also been publicly formulated by senior officials of different countries.
Positive characteristics of blockchain technology have pushed many scientific minds to solve the main problems of democracy through full transparency, direct voting and a new distributed system of governance (self-government) of society. The greatest enthusiasts call blockchain a “new state” or even predict a complete rejection of state power. Some scientists call institutional voting systems and collective decision-making based on blockchain technology cryptodemocracy.
Along with high-profile statements in different parts of the world, a lot of ideas and ways of its application in various votes have arisen.
The Swiss Agora project currently has real experience in participating in statewide voting. In 2018, using this platform, presidential elections were held in Sierra Leone (in a separate region). It should be noted that the Agora project (Agora Blockchain Team) did not directly participate in the election process by the authorized bodies, however, it was an accredited international observer and carried out parallel vote counting at 280 polling stations.
The platform is based on the interaction of different technologies in five layers:
1) the first layer blockchain Bulletin Board, which operates on the architecture of Skipchain, which has a large capacity and an effective mechanism to verify transactions through the use of long links that allow you to quickly access an entry in the registry in a logarithmic and not a linear number of steps, thus providing proof of transaction without having a full record of the blockchain. Transactions are confirmed by the nodes that make up the authorized collective body (Cotority). As in other blockchains, each node of the network contains copies of all transactions and confirms new transactions, including them in blocks, which supports the mechanism of consensus building in the network. The nodes independently monitor each other to ensure that the data written to the system remains unchanged;
2) the second layer — the Cotena transaction log links the Bulletin Board blockchain and cryptographic proofs to the Bitcoin blockchain, which ensures decentralized immutability of data. Cotena is a journal containing periodically updated information about the Bulletin Board blockchain, a copy of each update of which is stored both by Cotority nodes and in the Bitcoin blockchain. Together, Bulletin Board and Cotena represent a hybrid blockchain configuration that provides decentralization and tamper-proof security with low transaction cost and high data throughput;
3) the third layer is the Bitcoin blockchain, which is used because of its broad architecture to store certain data that the system needs for full decentralization. Currently, the Bitcoin network is one of the largest decentralized networks of computers in the world, so its blockchain is considered the most reliable and provides a high degree of the immutability of data. The Bitcoin blockchain makes it easy to verify that the Cotena journal and the Bulletin Board blockchain remain unchanged;
4) the fourth layer is the Valeda network, which is a decentralized network of trusted nodes that confirm the election results in the Bulletin Board blockchain. This level serves to provide definitive public evidence that Cothority has verified the validity of all ballots and that the election results are valid. This network consists of audit nodes, whose software creates cryptographic evidence related to various processes of the platform, including voting, anonymity, decryption, vote counting and more;
5) the fifth layer-Votapp applications, which include Voting Booth, Audit, Node. The Voting Booth app allows authorized voters to participate in elections on the Agora network. This application loads the information from the electoral event configuration file and displays the information necessary for the voter, such as the possible choice of solutions or candidates. Through the application, the voter can make sure that his choice is fixed, and the ballot is properly encrypted and information about it is included in the Bulletin Board blockchain. The Audit application provides a set of tools for monitoring and controlling the voting process, which can be implemented in each layer of the Agora architecture. The Node app allows you to explore the full history of entries in the Bulletin Board blockchain and Cotena magazine, which is available to all users. Active participation in the network with the right to write to the register (Consensus Node, which is included in Cotority) is possible only in the case of authorization as an Agora partner. In the case of the presidential elections in Sierra Leone, such operators were the Red Cross, the Higher technical school of Lausanne and the University of Freiburg, in addition, anyone could observe the process through additional nodes that worked in the “read-only” mode.
Thus, this set of technologies allows organizing transparent voting while saving time and financial resources of both organizers and voters.
The voting itself is conducted in six steps:
- Configuration of a new electoral event. Administrators create a new voting configuration file and specify its main parameters: a list of officials and state bodies responsible for the conduct of elections, which is assigned an identifier; the type of voting and its parameters; the date and time of the beginning and end of voting; voter lists (can be both public and encrypted); a list of candidates or voting questions, as well as the necessary information about them; a list of observers; other specific parameters. As soon as the parameters are finally defined, a file with data about them is entered in the Bulletin Board blockchain.
- Voting and sending encrypted ballots by voters to the Agora network. Each eligible voter, after identification, can access a virtual personal account through a voting device, which can be personal devices (computers, smartphones) or traditional voting machines at polling stations. After the voter has made his choice, a transaction is carried out and the encrypted ballot is entered into the Bulletin Board blockchain.
- Anonymization of the ballots. All bulletins uploaded to the Bulletin Board blockchain go through a “mixed network”, which is a collection of programs that repeatedly encrypt each of them and form a new list of anonymous bulletins with zero proof of identification in the Bulletin Board blockchain. Only one node of the network is able to correlate encrypted ballots with real voters for the sake of transparency.
- Transcript of anonymous ballots. To complete the vote-counting process, Cothority nodes jointly decrypt anonymous ballots and publish them with zero proof of correctness in the Bulletin Board blockchain. Election administrators can then verify the correctness of the evidence of partially deciphered ballots. Administrators can use correctly partially decrypted ballots to restore anonymous original unencrypted ballots that are published in the Bulletin Board blockchain, where they can be counted.
- Summing up the voting results. Agora nodes count votes on all valid decrypted ballots and publish the final results in the Bulletin Board blockchain. Agora, election administrators, or any third party observing the election can check the ballots. The party officially responsible for the vote count publishes the signed results in the Bulletin Board blockchain, after which pre-determined auditors can verify the validity of the results before they are considered final. In turn, the election administrator determines which party will be responsible for the official counting of votes and summing up the election results.
- Audit. Auditors and observers confirm the validity of the results obtained. Observers can be both election administrators and voters, as well as third parties located in any country. Audit nodes, which together constitute the Valeda network, corroborate cryptographic evidence to provide decentralized and objective confirmation of election results. The audit is carried out at all considered stages (steps) of voting.
Thus, this set of technologies allows quite openly and effectively conduct various kinds of voting, including elections at the national level. At the same time, administrative bodies are still present at all stages of the voting process, which does not quite correlate with the main idea of the functioning of distributed registries. Nevertheless, the actions of these bodies are quite strongly linked to the overall transparency and simultaneous recording of data on different data stores.
An important advantage of the project is its flexibility in interaction with public authorities and the abundance of possible settings of the electoral event, which allows you to effectively adapt to the requirements of national legislation.
Elections using blockchain technology recently came at the municipal level in the Swiss city of Zug. As part of these elections, a new state identification system, eID, was tested. The voting took place using a specially developed program for mobile devices by Luxoft and the University of Applied Sciences of Lucerne using the UPort identification application (uPort). Several other projects on electronic voting are being tested in different cantons of Switzerland. In the future, it is also planned to launch an electronic eVoting system at the state level.
The national center for electronics and computer technology of Thailand is developing a single hybrid electronic voting system using blockchain technology, which is applicable for both state and municipal level, and for corporate purposes. Currently, preparations are underway to launch a pilot program, but to support electoral events on a national scale, the widespread operation of 5g mobile networks is necessary.
American company Blockchain Technologies Corp. developed a voting platform called Votewatcher. The voting itself can be carried out both in the traditional form with the use of ballots and by mail, e-mail or on a special website. Voting using ballots is conducted in five stages. The first stage is no different from the usual voting: voters put the appropriate mark on the ballot. The only difference is the ballot itself, in the lower part of which QR codes are placed to identify it: the first QR code contains the blockchain address, the second is the ID of the ballot, and the third is the ID of the vote. In the second stage, all bulletins are scanned using optical tag recognition technology to generate data about each of them. In the third stage, a “transaction” is carried out for each Bulletin, through which data on its content is transmitted. At the fourth stage, the data is loaded into the Florincoin blockchain, which allows you to download a large amount of information, but has a lower degree of security. At the fifth stage, hashed data on the voting results for each ballot is loaded into the Bitcoin blockchain, which has a high degree of security. Thus, data is stored simultaneously in two registers, which significantly reduces the chances of their falsification.
However, it is necessary to pay attention to some shortcomings of this platform. First, ultimately the identification of voters should be held, the state represented by its bodies, therefore, it is theoretically possible to trace a link between a specific person and a newsletter that can violate the essential principle of voting secrecy. Secondly, the processing of ballots, counting results, uploading data to the blockchain are still connected with human labor and regulatory authorities, which contradicts the very idea of distributed systems and raises the question of their objective nature.
Currently, the Votewatcher platform has conducted more than 20 successful voting events (so far at the local level), where more than 1 million ballots have been processed. “The libertarian party of the USA used this platform to conduct elections of candidates for internal party positions in Texas… A total of 250 delegates participated in the” Texas “ vote. Blockchain machines developed by Blockchain Technologies Corp., in the future may compete with the vote-counting machines used in the United States”.
Another American company, Follow My Vote, has also created and is developing its voting platform based on the Bitcoin blockchain. Voting shall be conducted using an electronic platform that performs authentication of the voters via a webcam or a state ID. A special feature of the platform is the ability of voters to observe the voting process online, as well as to change their vote at any time before the official end of voting. Similar ideas were also supposed to be implemented in the project Boule and Votesocial.
Click here to learn more about Votesocial on Medium (Jorge Garcia).
The American company Factom announced its readiness to offer its infrastructure to state governments so that they can develop decentralized and automated voting systems (Factom).
Another American company, Voatz, introduced its app and technical support in the West Virginia Senate election. About 144 military and foreign voters voted from 30 different countries using a mobile voting app powered by blockchain technology. For identification, the Voatz app, along with government ID cards, uses built-in facial recognition and fingerprint systems on smartphones with the iOS and Android operating systems.
The ballot is identified and encrypted with a unique code, after which it is placed in the blockchain, which is built on the basis of the private HyperLedger blockchain (Hyperledger) (the blockchain, placed in the public domain, is funded by the Linux Foundation). Thus, in order to participate in an electoral event, each voter or auditor must first be verified by a verifier (node). The West Virginia pilot project used 16 to 32 verified nodes split in half between Microsoft Azure cloud servers and Amazon’s AWS. In the future, the competent authorities will be able to increase the number of nodes and determine which organizations (for example, political parties, universities, media, non-profit organizations, etc.) can participate as verifiers.
Developments in the field of voting using blockchain technology are also underway in Russia. The national settlement Depository announced the creation of an e-proxy voting platform for electronic voting in corporate actions and document management, which was successfully tested. As noted in the company’s management, “after analyzing several options for applying blockchain to various areas of NSD’s activities within the framework of the working group, we decided to automate the voting of securities owners at the annual general meetings.”
The corresponding software is available as open-source on GitHub (GitHub).
It should also be noted that the Polys project (Polys), launched with the support of Kaspersky Lab, is the main goal of which is to create a platform for conducting electronic voting for the internal activities of political parties. The voting platform is developed on the basis of Ethereum smart contract technology. Elections to the Youth Parliament of the Saratov region were held using Polys. More than 15 thousand voters took part in them.
It is planned to create a platform for various types of voting at the regional and municipal level based on blockchain technology on the basis of the Active citizen application that functions for Moscow residents.
The possibility of using this technology has recently been frequently discussed in the framework of scientific conferences, as well as in the speeches of officials Find a place in the relevant plans and regulations. Thus, the draft Strategy for the development of the information technology industry in the Russian Federation for 2019–2025 and for the future until 2030 indicates that the implementation of some initiatives may lead to the fact that a system of registration of votes and summing up of elections at various levels can be organized on the basis of distributed access technology.
A curious example is also the Australian political party Flux, which conducts electronic voting for its members on the basis of crypto technologies. Of particular interest is the voting system, in which citizens will be able to vote for or against every bill considered in the country’s Parliament. Depending on the results of the vote, the deputies from the party vote at the meeting in one way or another.
One of the first applications of this technology in public voting was voting on current issues of the Danish political party “Liberal Alliance” at the annual Congress. According to the results of this experiment, the party leadership came to the following General conclusions: this technology “eliminates the need for trust, because it can work autonomously without human intervention, and all this at the same time is absolutely open and transparent.”
Over the past few years, the possibility of including a phone number in the list of identity documents has been raised several times, but no specific decisions have been made yet. It is interesting to note that in China, Wechat, a popular messenger in this country, is being tested as a method of identification. The banking industry is actively developing the idea of identifying people by their biometric data, such as the retina, face shape, voice, etc.
Another important issue is the secrecy of voting. As already discussed in the process of studying the blockchain solutions available on the market, even with a completely electronic format of voting, protected by cryptographic methods, there is still a certain control node that can match encrypted ballots with real voters. Even voting using identifiers (some depersonalized ID) will not mean complete anonymity since the state for security purposes can always have a register of their values. “No matter how well protected a centralized electronic voting system is, it is still extremely insecure, since any centralized and opaque computer system is basically insecure.”
(Kovic M. Blockchain for the people. Blockchain technology as the basis for a secure and reliable e-voting system // ZIPAR Discussion Paper Series. 2017. Vol. 1. Iss. 1. Zurich, Switzerland. P. 20).
In science, other problems related to the use of this technology were considered, such as the possibility of infecting the user’s device with a virus and voting for it by another person (these problems are inherent in almost all types of digital communications).
(Ayed A.B. A conceptual secure blockchain-based electronic voting system // International Journal of Network Security & Its Applications. 2017. Vol. 9. N 3).
Thus, voting with the use of distributed registry technology in General, and blockchain technology in particular, while preserving all their key advantages, such as the inability to make changes to the transaction register, the absence of control centers, full transparency, is possible only in voting that does not require the secrecy of the vote as one of the essential conditions.
In this case, attention should be paid to other institutions of direct democracy, such as the people’s law-making initiative, citizens ‘ appeals (including collective ones), etc. However, with regard to elections and referendums, this technology can be effectively used at certain stages, which will save time and financial resources.
