Blockchain as a technology has an impact on a wide range of industries. It is changing the way things have always been done, making them appear more democratic. Its potential has been recognized in areas other than cryptocurrency.
Organizations and others who are reluctant towards cryptocurrencies are also in favor of blockchain technology adoption. Several industries, including cloud storage, supply chain management systems, crowdfunding, and even healthcare, have seen radical changes as a result of blockchain.
Consequently, voting is one of the most significant domains that blockchain's decentralized muscle can solve. Let's examine it more closely.
The Need for Digital Voting
Even in the 21st century, online voting is still not possible in most countries. Voters need to leave their houses and cast votes. As a result, when the pandemic struck, elections were postponed since many people did not want to vote in person and could not vote online.
A lot of effort is expended, and an entire day is devoted to the voting process in order to engage voters. Many countries hold general elections on Saturdays or Sundays to allow as many people as possible to vote. Election day is declared a public holiday in several countries or sections of countries that hold elections on a weekday.
Despite all of this effort and spending a whole day of the economy, the majority of areas had voting rates of 60-70%. This reveals far too much about the existing system's inefficiency. There are several flaws associated with current traditional voting, such as false/duplicate voting, counting mistakes, vote rejection, and human manipulation.
Furthermore, voting inside an organization cannot be done in this way, there are many issues. If the voting is scheduled on a weekday, all of the members will be unable to attend since they are at work. Their time is wasted if it is kept on the weekend. There will be complaints regarding time, place, and many more factors.
Digital voting solves many of these problems. Voters will be able to use their voting right in a few clicks from anywhere on the earth with an internet connection, whether using a mobile phone, a tablet, or a computer. It works efficiently for an organization and elections on a small level.
However, incorporating digital voting into traditional democratic systems is not as simple as it appears. The possibility of hacking and online identity verification are the two biggest obstacles. Although online identity verification is possible, this method is not safe from hackers. It is vulnerable to a variety of security concerns, such as DDoS attacks, vote alteration and manipulation, malware attacks, and so on.
There are several options, benefits, and drawbacks. Many nations are successfully carrying out this model of elections in local municipality elections. However, it has been shown that on a broad scale, this approach is not very dependable.
The voting process can be made more safe, transparent, immutable, and dependable by utilizing blockchain and many nations have also started implementing it. Let's examine it and its functioning in more detail.
