The Impacts of Blockchain in Elections: Can It Improve Voting Outcomes?

Introduction

Democracy requires its citizens to be able to vote and voting can range from a local mayoral race to parliamentary or congressional elections to presidential elections. The foundations of democracy came into existence in ancient Greece in which the balance of power in government was determined by individuals from all walks of life with an interest to promote the common good (Ginsburg and Huq, 2018). The latter was achieved via voting by the people representing different viewpoints. That is, candidates can have their ideologies and belief presented to voters to decide their outcome. Elections have evolved over the years from paper-based elections to online voting via the internet (Trechsel et al., 2010; Gorbatiuc, 2020). The evidence from online voting seems to show that turnout is higher. Despite these advances to improve voter outcomes via online voting, many voters and voting administrators are still skeptical about such voting because of security concerns and a lack of trust in these systems. Traditional online voting represents the older version of internet-based technology and the use of the blockchain seems like a more suitable technical solution to ensure online voting is secure and to enable trust by the voters and administrators of voting. Consequently, the blockchain could create a higher sense of trust in the implementation and the outcome of an election.

This chapter attempts to answer the following research questions:

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  What is the impact of the blockchain on the political processes especially when constituents vote?

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  What is the essence of online voting via the blockchain and what are its benefits?

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  What are the vulnerabilities when applying the blockchain when used in online voting?

This chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the role of voting in societies. Section 3 presents the foundations of internet voting using the blockchain. Section 4 presents the foundations of internet voting via the blockchain and its vulnerabilities. The fifth section provides the social and economic benefits of conducting elections via a blockchain. The final section concludes the chapter

Role Of Voting In Societies

Ordinary citizens often vote in elections to determine their future, and these elections often symbolize the cornerstone of a democratic society (Currin-Percival, et al, 2010). If elections work as they are intended to do, it can increase civic engagement, inform public debate and ensure accountability to the elected officials (Wojtasik, 2013; Norris and Grömping, 2019). In the minds of the voters, democracy only works if the election results are perceived as legitimate and the election was conducted fairly (Morgan, 2018). More important, voters need to have trust in the electoral process. To achieve the latter, election administrators need to carefully review the electoral systems and determine how they can be improved, so it prevents the democratic system from being undermined (Anderson, 2005).