Different global nations have employed different methods of voting when electing suitable candidates for leadership. Voting systems in some countries have often depended on traditional methods such as conducting voting polls and mail-in-ballot. However, these conventional methods are linked with numerous inefficient policies and suspicious activities of election rigging, fraud and scams that have in turn affected the functions of the election bodies in place. Using the United States of America as my casing point, various reports show that incidents of voter fraud and other malpractices were involved in their previous elections which compromised an affected transparency of the voting systems.
Rapid development of internet and information technology has caused these traditional voting methods to migrate online thus increasing the widespread adoption of digital voting system. This still means that potential threats and challenges of voter fraud and malicious activities performed by both leaders and voters are still in existence. Attaining secure digital voting has always been a significant concern in developing and implementing digital voting systems (Vonnahme, 2019). Blockchain is emerging as one of the most potential forms of technology that is been implemented in most global nations as a way of curbing security issues related to digital voting. The goal of my research will focus on the various ways that blockchain technology can be implemented and integrated in the voting process of global economies such as the U.S among other nations to help improve efficiency and transparency as well as secure future success of digital voting (Khan et al., 2021).
For the first part of my study, I was able to identify some of the research areas that are directly related to how blockchain technology could be used as a tool to implement secure digital voting systems. To begin with, there are numerous digital voting schemes that have been proposed in the field of blockchain-based e-voting. Conclusive research made by Snehal Nhogan et al. (2019) point out that implementing blockchain platforms such as smart contracts, hyperledger will make a significant contribution to digital voting. It will help improve on cost-efficiency and offer new possibilities on overcoming the limitations in the scalability of electronic voting systems. This means that blockchain technology can be a solution that the US government could adopt in order gain voters’ confidence and accountability (Moura & Gomes, 2017).
Another trend related to my topic of research was the persistent use of cryptocurrencies by governments and corporations. Most people began to realize that through blockchain, one of the underlying innovations involving cryptocurrencies could be used to secure digital voting systems. Based on this context, the use of a bitcoin-based digital voting system would allow flexible voting process while maintaining the privacy of an individual’s vote (Snehal Bhogan et al., 2019). To add on, several ethereum-based digital voting platforms which run the blockchain concept are widely used in guarding the entire digital voting systems protocol thereby ensure a voter’s privacy and security. Establishing such a system would be used to support basic requirements such as robustness, privacy, verifiability and verifiability Moura & Gomes (2017) in their article tackled scalability and security problems inherent in the election voting systems using blockchain. Instead of using the standard blockchain protocol, they decided to adopt the phantom protocol, which uses a greedy algorithm and supports large scale transactions. They stated that this method while providing solutions to scalability and security problems, it also provides a fast voting process.
In general, the advantages that come with the use of blockchain-based digital voting entirely depends on how the system is implemented. One of the main concerns that ought to be resolved is the doubt that possible violations of election rules or in election results can occur within a nation. This means that anyone who access a blockchain platform is able to access all published data within the system. The possible solution therefore is the utilization of a private blockchain (Khan et al., 2021). However, how transparency will be integrated and assured still remains to be a problem that requires an immediate solution. To add on, the disclosure of the intermittent voting results during the voting process may be seen as undesirable. In order to assure that no intervention is conducted depending on the results, the election results must remain closed until the election process is over. Therefore, there is need to carry out further investigations on the time-independent disclosure mechanisms that guarantee election results (Moura & Gomes, 2017).
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