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The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted people’s lives, the relationship between governments and citizens and the entire world economy and, of course, had a major impact on the US presidential election.
Due to social isolation, a large number of American voters chose to vote by mail, which increased the counting time, led candidate and incumbent President Donald Trump to judge the electoral process with actions in different states and sparked intense debates on the veracity and legitimacy of the current American electoral system.
Related: Blockchain voting systems may be the future, but current flaws persist
The current voting system in the digital age
Currently, many have proposed “mobile” voting as an alternative more compatible with current times, allowing people to vote without leaving home.
We can shop online, there are professions that are done 100% remotely – which has escalated with the current pandemic – but voting has yet to be exercised in person and in a specific place.
Now, doesn’t this go against the digital age where information and technology serve as facilitators of communication, data transfer and business transactions?
How is mobile or remote voting possible without compromising the security of electoral participation? Adding blockchain solutions to the mobile voting process can give confidence to the electoral system and bring peace to the electoral process.
Related: Electronic voting with blockchain: an experience from Naples, Italy
The combination of sequential hashing and cryptography in a distributed structure allows for the protection of the identity of the voters and the verification of absolutely all the votes entered in the blockchain platform, which can enable secure and transparent voting mechanisms with monitoring of the electoral vote.
Imagine how nice it would be to check if your vote has actually been counted for the candidate of your choice, with the absolute guarantee of the secrecy of your vote? All this is possible with blockchain technology.
Related: The promise and reality of the role of blockchain in global elections
American electoral jurisdictions and blockchain-based pilot projects
Electoral jurisdictions in several US states have tested mobile application-based blockchain voting for state, federal and municipal elections, primarily to allow remote voting by military and civilians residing overseas via smartphones and tablets, rather than traditional methods and mail, fax and paper.
West Virginia, for example, enabled mobile voting via blockchain for its state and federal elections in 2018. Denver, Colorado; Utah County, Utah; and two counties in the state of Oregon also tested pilot projects for the 2019 municipal elections. In total, 29 counties in five states tested Voatz’s mobile voting app in official elections.
In all the examples cited above, to the surprise of many and according to the authorities responsible for voting via blockchain, the electoral process proved to be easier and more accessible.
For this reason, there are already supporters of the use of blockchain in US elections.
The positions of American political figures on mobile voting
As a result of the good performance mentioned in the previous paragraphs, there are already important figures in American politics raising the banner of blockchain mobile voting, such as Bradley Tusk – an American businessman, philanthropist, political strategist and founder of Tusk Philanthropies; Mike Queen – Deputy Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State of West Virginia; and Jocelyn Bucaro, election director in Denver.
But as we live in the age of polarization, there are also people strongly opposed to mobile voting, including blockchain voting. In this sense, we can refer to Jeremy Epstein, member of the Association for Computing Machinery’s US Technology Policy Committee. Here, it is important to note that Epstein – who at the time was vice chair of the commission – co-authored an election security report titled “Email and Internet Voting: The Overlooked Threat to Election Security”, developed in collaboration with Common Cause, National Election. Defense Coalition and R Street Institute.
The report points to blockchain and internet voting as the target of online attacks by foreign intelligence, stating that the transmission of cards over the internet – including via email, fax and blockchain systems – makes them vulnerable.
Despite the pros and cons, are there already solutions that can protect citizens from election fraud? How would identity verification be used in the process? What projects and solutions can we think of implementing for identity verification in the voting process and how would they work?
A blockchain solution that can allow for a virtual election in the United States
The Voatz application, for example, looks for vulnerabilities and signs of commitment or vulnerability from the start. If the app detects that a smartphone has been compromised, it does not allow the user to vote. If the application passes the security tests and third-party tools linked to it, the voter is authenticated on their mobile phone by a fingerprint or facial recognition.
The voter then provides their government identification, usually a driver’s license or passport, and takes a selfie for further authentication. Finally, the voter touches the fingerprint reader of their mobile phone to verify that the smartphone is actually in the hands of the voter. At this stage, the Voatz application combines the selfie taken by the voter with the image of the identity document and, after double-checking all the registration information provided, confirms that the voter can vote.
Voters can use their own additional authentication factor, such as an Apple Watch, Google Authenticator, or YubiKey. And if they wish, they can still receive an SMS or email message as an additional authentication factor.
Cybersecurity in a blockchain vote
When it comes to cybersecurity, since “all” software has vulnerabilities, it cannot be ignored that distributed denial-of-service and denial-of-service attacks are legitimate risks in a mobile vote. Therefore, it is important to seek backup methods for possible infrastructure failures in the event of a DoS attack on the mobile voting system.
The blockchain part of the process is the least concern in terms of security. It is only one component of the voting process, which also includes the security, identity verification and validation steps.
Blockchain, in Voatz’s case, is for the specific application it was built for: distributing voting records so it’s harder to attack remotely. It also has cryptographic control proofs of each transaction.
The main security risk in voting via blockchain is in the interface with the electoral jurisdiction, where the card is also printed with a hash or encrypted key on top. After being archived, it is finally digitized in the electoral systems and in the software systems for reading the ballot papers. At this stage, the electoral process “is out of reach” for Voatz.
In addition to cybersecurity issues, another point in a blockchain vote that has been questioned is: how would the ballot book and verified ballot papers be processed in a blockchain solution?
Taking the Voatz app again as an example, it uses a 32-node blockchain infrastructure on Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, each hosting 16 nodes in the United States. Cloudflare is among several companies that provide DDoS protection services, and Voatz said the system uses end-to-end encryption and multi-factor authentication for infrastructure nodes.
Another blockchain voting solution was used in Colombia in 2016. “Blockchain Voting for Peace” is a case study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development of a referendum held in Colombia at the time. In it, the non-profit organization Democracy Earth Foundation creates a blockchain platform to allow Colombians living abroad to symbolically participate in the plebiscite on the peace treaty between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, commonly known as the FARC. . The interesting thing here is the possibility of democratic coverage provided by the blockchain.
Key aspects
From what we have seen so far, it is no exaggeration to imagine that in the near future many countries will see blockchain technology as an ideal voting method for a company that is increasingly digitized faster than ever.
However, even if technology maturity is reached and actually brings greater legitimacy to the electoral process and truthfulness to the voting system, will we be able to overcome the cultural barriers and digital illiteracy that still exist in today’s world?
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed herein are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
Tatiana revoredo is a founding member of the Oxford Blockchain Foundation and is a blockchain strategist at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. Additionally, she is a blockchain business applications expert at MIT and is the chief strategy officer of The Global Strategy. Tatiana was invited by the European Parliament to the Intercontinental Blockchain Conference and was invited by the Brazilian Parliament to the public hearing on Bill 2303/2015. She is the author of two books: Blockchain: everything you need to know is Cryptocurrencies in the international scenario: what is the position of central banks, governments and authorities on cryptocurrencies?
