[ad_1]
Several weeks after the US election, and despite Joe Biden being called to victory, the perception persists in some quarters that the election was undermined by alleged voting irregularities.
The coronavirus pandemic and social distancing measures have brought particular challenges in the administration of these elections. Even in a normal year, however, conducting an election that spans an entire continent and with more than 230 million eligible voters is a huge challenge. From manual counting (and recounting) of votes, to checking stamps and treating foreign voters or those who have moved from one state to another, the process is long and difficult.
It is from this difficulty that claims and counter-claims have emerged which, in the long term, risk undermining confidence in the result and more generally in the democratic system. As with many problems, however, there may be a technological solution to this challenge.
Voting blocks
In a world where data is an increasingly valuable commodity, blockchain technology promises to make data secure, thus ensuring that trust in a given system can be maintained. A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology in which a shared ledger of records or transactions is kept in blocks, it is designed to be immutable, meaning that once information is stored on the blockchain it cannot be changed. A blockchain is open to participant inspection and is decentralized, which means it is not subject to any form of central control.
Until now, the technology has mainly been employed in cryptocurrencies and financial services where customer and institutional data protection is of paramount importance.
Could the same security guarantees also help boost confidence in elections?
The US elections saw the first ever blockchain vote in Utah, and while it’s a small first step, it could very well be the shape of things to come. At Marks & Clerk we have analyzed recent patent filing trends in the field of blockchain and found that, while financial service oriented patent applications continue to dominate, blockchain patents oriented towards electoral voting applications are on the rise.
Blockchain technology is likely to need to be implemented as part of a broader cryptographic solution to ensure complete security. For example, when voting remotely, a voter’s phone or computer must be protected from malware to ensure that the voter’s vote is cast on the blockchain for the candidate of their choice. It is therefore evident that there is room for a great deal of innovation in this sector.
Chain of events
It is still too early to say whether this heralds a new approach to conducting elections, but it is clear that there are several ways blockchain could be useful in ensuring security in the chain of events that encompasses an election.
From helping voters to correctly identify candidates on a ballot paper, ensuring voter privacy, to processing and storing voting data, and possibly – and crucially – voting data analysis to determine the candidate winning election, advanced data storage and blockchain security may have a central role to play in the future.
From the perspective of innovators in this field, ensuring success means making sure a blockchain innovation solves a technical problem in a new and non-obvious way.
In a recent conference hosted by Marks & Clerk, an examiner from the European Patent Office made the point that – in the eyes of the EPO – blockchain-related inventions fall much into the same category as other computer-implemented inventions. This is good news for blockchain innovators pursuing patent protection in Europe because it means that there is a large body of well-established jurisprudence that is directly applicable to inventions implemented on blockchain. Our team of lawyers specializing in this area are therefore in a good position to advise on how to obtain optimal protection for blockchain inventions.
Election voting is just one area where advanced blockchain security is likely to be increasingly applicable in the future. And, as events in the United States highlight, the impetus for its use in this field is growing day by day. Reputation and the perception of trustworthiness will be critical to anyone entering this field. The protection of intellectual property will therefore be fundamental, not only in terms of protecting the technology itself, but also in terms of protecting the reputation of the brand.
Get the intellectual property right and blockchain has the potential to bring the vote into 21st century, and restore some of the confidence that the current, more permeable vote-counting system has eroded.
