In Blockchain Voting, Leave Out the General Election

Context:  Recently, the Election Commission had explored the possibility of using blockchain technology for the purpose of enabling remote elections. 

Blockchain Technology

• It is a distributed ledger of information which is replicated across various nodes on a “peer-to-peer” network for the purpose of ensuring integrity and verifiability of data stored on the ledger.
• Traditionally been used as supporting structures for cryptocurrencies.
• Applications:

• Allowing individuals and companies to draft legally-binding “smart contracts.”
• Enabling detailed monitoring of supply chain networks
• Several projects focused on enabling remote voting and elections.

Arguments in favour of remote voting

• Benefit internal migrants and seasonal workers
• Useful for some remotely-stationed members of the Indian armed forces.

Key issues and security concerns

• Requirement of Physical presence: Electors would still have to physically reach a designated venue in order to cast their vote

• Digitization and interconnectivity introduce additional points of failure external to the processes which exist in the present day.

• Only slightly better than app-based voting systems: which have so far only been deployed in a few low-level elections in the West

• The systems used in such low-stakes elections have suffered several blunders too, some of which could have been catastrophic if they had gone undetected.

• Risks of identity disclosure: Blockchain solutions heavily rely on cryptographic protocols.

• If any shortcomings exist in an implementation, it might stand to potentially unmask the identity and voting preferences of electors or allow an individual to cast a vote as someone else. 

• Vulnerable to attacks: Requirement of physical presence and biometric authentication may not necessarily make a remote voting system invulnerable to attacks

• An attacker may be able to clone the biometric attributes
• Physical implants or software backdoors placed on an individual system could allow attackers to collect and deduce the voting choices of individuals.
• Denial-of-Service attacks: provisioning of a dedicated line may make it increasingly prone to targeted Denial-of-Service attacks

• Exclusion Errors: Exclude and disenfranchise certain individuals due to flaws in interdependent platforms, flaws in system design, as well as general failures caused by external factors. 

• Unqualified obsession with technology:

• If a solution uses technology, the general consensus is that it must work.
• This optimism for technological solutions poses a threat and could stand to hinder free and fair elections in the future, if unchecked.

Way Forward:

• Improving on existing methods: such as postal ballots or proxy voting.
• Creation of a ‘One Nation, One Voter ID’ system
• Independent and fault tolerable System: Any solution to electoral problems must be software-independent and fault tolerable, avoiding affect the integrity or transparency of the overall process.
• Should not be used in general election: Use of such a system could perhaps only be justified for lower-level elections.