Now is the time to move elections to public blockchains

The world is rife with election skepticism and conspiracies. In some countries, elections truly are corrupt. In others, the conspiracies are used as propaganda, and are hurting the stability, trust and legitimacy of the system. Putting elections on public blockchains would make elections much more democratic and transparent.

What does it mean to move elections to public blockchains?

• Live Election Results: Election results can be viewed by anyone at any time, as long as they have a device and internet connection. No more waiting for states/counties to report results. As soon as a vote is input into the blockchain, it can be viewed and counted by anyone around the world at any time.
• No Human Error or Cheating: Human error and/or cheating is eliminated, starting at the point of data input, because information on the blockchain cannot be edited or deleted. (Error and cheating can still happen before data is input onto the blockchain, but this is still a significant improvement.)
• Open Source/Development: The blockchain and election code can be viewed and audited by anyone. Again, beginning at the point of data input, there are no secrets; anyone can see exactly how the system works.

Is it feasible? Would it really help?

Putting elections on a public blockchains is absolutely feasible. In terms of technical complexity, this is about as basic as blockchains get.

The real challenge is what happens before the data is input into the blockchain. We will still have to deal with human error/cheating prior to inputting the data. We will still have to deal with gerrymandering, the electoral college (in the US), voter intimidation, social engineering, and other issues.

As long as voting administrations aim to go “from voter’s hand to blockchain input” as quickly and transparently as possible, however, people could at least say with confidence, “my vote was counted.”

So putting elections on public blockchains, frankly, would be easy. It’s not a silver bullet, but it solves a large number of problems.

What are the main barriers to accomplishing this?

The main barrier is that most people — lawmakers included — don’t know anything about blockchain. At most, they usually know that “blockchain = Bitcoin.”

We need to educate people that blockchains are simply public records of information that are open for anyone to read and cannot be edited or deleted. Further, the only way to add information is according to a specific set of rules and in a transparent way, in front of everyone else.

Let’s keep it simple and teach people about the potential of blockchain in this space.