From EVMs to Blockchain-based e-voting?
Recently, the Election Commission of India (ECI) had held an online conference in collaboration with the Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (TNeGA) and IIT Madras and explored the possibility of using blockchain technology for the purpose of enabling remote elections.
What is Blockchain Technology?
- A blockchain is a distributed ledger of information which is replicated across various nodes on a “peer-to-peer” network for the purpose of ensuring integrity and verifiability of data stored on the ledger.
- The Blockchain ledgers have traditionally been used as supporting structures for cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
- The non-cryptocurrency applications of the blockchain technology have been rising steadily with some solutions allowing individuals and companies to draft legally-binding “smart contracts,” enabling detailed monitoring of supply chain networks.
Significance of Blockchain Technology in Remote Voting System
- Securing the voting rights of migrant workers: The use of blockchain technology in remote voting would appear to benefit internal migrants and seasonal workers who account for roughly 51 million of the populace (Census 2011).
- Alternative to Proxy voting for Indian Armed Forces: The envisioned solution of blockchain voting might also be useful for some remotely-stationed members of the Indian armed forces.
- Introduction of Aadhaar-linked electronic voting system: The model of an Aadhaar-linked electronic voting system that would enable electors to cast their votes from any part of the country, irrespective of where they are registered to vote or even abroad.
- Boost to voter participation: The blockchain and internet-based voting platforms have been viewed as one way to boost voter participation by making the process easier through mobile apps that allow both registration and ballot casting to occur from anywhere in the world.
Concerns associated with Blockchain Voting
- Electors to physically reach a designated venue: The electors would still have to physically reach a designated venue in order to cast their vote and would use white-listed IP devices on dedicated internet lines.
- The requirement of physical presence and biometric authentication may not necessarily make a remote voting system invulnerable to attacks either.
- Issue associated digitization and connectivity: The digitisation and interconnectivity introduce additional points of failure external to the processes which exist in the present day.
- The system envisioned by the Election Commission is perhaps only slightly more acceptable than a fully remote, app-based voting system.
- Blunders in low-stakes elections: The systems used in such low-stakes elections have suffered several blunders too, some of which could have been catastrophic if they had gone undetected.
- Shortcomings in the implementation of protocols: The blockchain solutions rely heavily on the proper implementation of cryptographic protocols.
- The shortcomings in the implementation of cryptographic protocols might stand to potentially unmask the identity and voting preferences of electors or allow an individual to cast a vote as someone else.
- Technological obsession of India: The optimism for technological solutions poses a threat and could stand to hinder free and fair elections in the future.
Why blockchain-based voting could threaten democracy?
- The security experts warn that blockchain-based mobile voting technology is innately insecure and potentially a danger to democracy through "wholesale fraud" or "manipulation tactics".
- The issues around online voting include server penetration attacks, client-device malware, denial-of-service attacks and other disruptions.
- The blockchain and internet voting is a ready target for online attacks by foreign intelligence and transmission of ballots over the internet, including by email, fax and blockchain systems, are seriously vulnerable.
- The infecting of voters' computers with malware or infecting the computers in the elections office that handle and count ballots are both effective methods for large-scale corruption.
Why Election Commission of India is developing a blockchain voting system?
- Enhancing the Indian elections at high level: India has pondered how blockchain might enhance its elections with a high-level online gabfest concluding that the technology might have a role in making it possible for more voters to cast their ballot in more places around the nation.
- Complex and lengthy system of Indian elections: The Indian general elections are famously complex and lengthy and more than 600 million voters cast a ballot in the 2019 event, which saw voting take place on seven days, spread across 38 days.
- India only offers absentee votes to a very limited set of citizens but the nation also has many citizens who chase seasonal work outside their constituencies and are effectively disenfranchised because of the restrictions on absentee voting.
Road ahead
- Government to focus on reforms in postal ballots and proxy voting: The political engagement could perhaps be improved by introducing and improving upon other methods, such as postal ballots or proxy voting.
- Introduction of One Nation-One Voter ID system: The government must address the electoral issues by introducing One Nation-One Voter ID system which would allow individuals to cast their vote from respective states.
- It is important to lay stress on the point that further digitisation does not make processes more robust and any solution to electoral problems must be software independent and fault tolerable.
- If the Election Commission is able to design a system which is proven to be satisfactorily secure in the face of attacks, where tampering could be detected, and where the integrity of the ballot is verifiable by electors, use of such a system could perhaps only be justified for lower level elections.
- The idea of adapting digital voting systems to make the public electoral process cheaper, faster and easier and making the electoral process cheap and quick, it normalizes in the eyes of the voters, removes a certain power barrier between the voter and the elected official.
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