The November 3 presidential election in the United States was initially controversial, but allegations of electoral fraud by defeated President Trump have called the entire process into question. Daniel Hardman, chief architect and chief information security officer at the self-sovereign identity solution Evernym, believes that blockchain could support general voting in the future.
“Basically, blockchain can provide a way for voters to be reliably and securely registered to vote. When votes are cast, blockchain can be a mechanism to prove that someone has the right to vote based on their prior registration,” Hardman told Cointelegraph. “Blockchain can provide some functionality that is useful in examining a vote in an election,” he added.
Republicans were reluctant to accept a Biden victory despite the electoral college reviewing the results in early December. The reasons ranged from allegations of faulty or manipulated voting machines to allegations that forged ballot papers appear en masse at critical voting locations.
“The recent things we saw in election challenges in Pennsylvania and Arizona, etc. – there are certain features of the blockchain that would have made it possible to conduct a more robust test,” Hardman said. “You could basically lie down to address concerns about tampering and the like.”
With public blockchains such as Bitcoin (BTC), every transaction is recorded in an unchangeable public ledger, making audits easier and more transparent than centralized or paper-based processes. Applying such technology to voting could produce similar voting results.
Although the model appears transparent and immutable, how would the authorities know if votes came from citizens who only voted once? “What you want is what is called an end-to-end review,” Hardman explained. “On one side, the front is the registration part,” he said, adding:
“You need to know that a person can only register once. That means that when someone walks in to register, you are doing the things you would do today with a physical voting mechanism. That means you check the driver’s license and see if their picture matches, their signature matches, all of those things. “
Then the technology under the hood ensures that each person only has one voice. “In the backend, you prove that you can cast exactly one vote for each registration,” said Hardman.
In recent years, due to its usefulness in a number of popular processes, such as: B. in the supply chain, gained popularity.
