Banking systems use computers.
Voters can use computers.
JUST not the system which is currently used.
I wonder if we could apply blockchain technology to voting. The built in tracking feature could make it hard for anyone to alter a vote without leaving a telltale sign that could easily be detected.
“Banking systems use computers.”
I have been discussing this with friends for years. Most people use ATM’s and other automatic payment systems. Nothing is perfect, and you can find horror stories, but, by and large the system works. Your transaction is recorded, and you get a receipt that documents what you have done. What my friends object to in an ATM-style voting system is that the receipt and the record could be somehow be tied to you and you would lose the privacy of your vote. I, for some reasons I can’t fathom right now, am not particularly concerned about the privacy of my vote and the secret ballot. But that’s a right that some people think it’s very important to preserve. The problem I see is that it is the very anonymity of the ballot that opens it up to manipulation by the vote counters. Ballots you don’t want can get lost surreptitiously or “spoiled”. Ballots you do want can magically appear.
I don’t really understand blockchain technology very well, but couldn’t each individual’s vote be added to a chain at the time he or she voted? Blockchains are designed to be maintained in such a manner that any attempt to change them can be detected by anyone who cares to check. The only changes that are allowed is to add new records to the existing chain. New records could be prevented after the close of polls by ending the chain, which would then never change. Every transaction is permanently there to be examined, and, as I understand, this can be done without recording or revealing the identity of the one making the transaction. That’s why governments hate bitcoin. They can see the transactions in the publicly available record but not who is making the transactions or for what purposes. Tax avoiders and black-marketers have a new, powerful tool.
BlockChain technology is a (supposedly) unbreakable and incorruptible way to keep records or accounts. What would be the downsides of recording elections using that technology?