Do We Need a Blockchain-based Voting System?
Tags: Voting Methods, Blockchain Technology, Voting Machines, Blockchain, Voting

Was there massive voter fraud that could change the outcome of the election?

The past two presidential elections have been some of the most divisive elections in US history. The country is split almost in half between Republicans and Democrats. So there is serious tension when a winner is declared by the Associated Press, which has accurately called the presidential election since 1848.

Trump’s campaign spent $3 million for a manual recount of the votes in Milwaukee and Dane County. The end result was an additional 87 votes for Joe Biden, thus increasing Biden’s lead in those two counties. The recount did not change the number of electoral votes won by Joe Biden in Wisconsin.

In 2014, Loyola Law School professor and voting expert Justin Levitt investigated every general, primary, special, and municipal election held in the US since 2000. Out of more than 1 billion votes that were cast, he found just 31 credible instances of potential voter impersonation.

So the number of votes that are subject to fraudulent activity or other issues is relatively small compared to the total number of votes cast in elections. However, there is still distrust of the current voting system in the US.

On November 16, 2020, a poll was conducted by Vox and Data for Progress. 57% of Republicans who were polled said that they strongly believe that Joe Biden won the US presidential election due to voter fraud. In that same poll, 18% of Republicans who were polled agreed somewhat that election fraud helped Joe Biden become elected as the 46th US President.

On December 8, 2020, senior Republican members of the bipartisan Inaugural Committee voted down a resolution acknowledging Joe Biden as the president-elect.

So do we need a voting system that people can trust? Yes

Do we need a voting system that allows people to verify their voting status? Yes

Do we need a voting system that cannot be altered? Yes

Enter blockchain. A blockchain-based voting system properly developed and administered will foster trust, because it is verifiable and uneditable.

Ben Buchanan and Michael Sulmeyer of Harvard’s Belfer Center Cybersecurity Project outlined the five factors of the election process that they thought were the most vulnerable.

1. Information warfare

2. Electronic voter registration database

3. Voting machinery and tabulation systems

4. Election reporting systems

5. Post-election audits

So let’s start with information warfare. Social media has become one of the primary ways that Americans receive info about presidential candidates that will impact how people will vote. Leading up to the 2018 midterm elections in the US, Facebook identified 559 pages and 251 accounts created and run by Americans to spread misinformation. This is in addition to foreign influence in social media meant to influence how Americans view their political parties and presidential candidates.

Voter registration databases are vulnerable to hacks. The objective is to remove voters to hinder them from voting.

Internet-connected voting machines are particularly vulnerable to hack attacks. At the 2020 DEF CON, one of the world’s largest hacker conferences, hackers attempted to find vulnerabilities in voter registration databases and voting machines. By the end of the conference, every device was exploited in some way.

Hackers can also attack points where the data is sent to news organizations to trick them into announcing the wrong winner. Hackers can take over social media accounts of trustworthy institutions to announce false results.

One of the most widely used voting systems in the US is made by Dominion Voting Systems based in Denver, Colorado and Toronto, Canada. It is used in 28 states and serves 40% of American voters. Two other voting systems are made by Election Systems & Software based in Omaha, Nebraska and Hart InterCivic based in Austin, Texas. All three companies are privately owned.

The main voting system is a ballot-marking machine. Voters click on their choices on a touch screen. After the voting session is finished, the machine produces a paper printout of the votes. Then the paper printout is fed into a scanner in order to be tabulated. The other widely used voting system is a hand-marked paper ballot which is then scanned into a tabulating machine. These are subject to human error.

We take the example of Antrim County, Michigan, which is strongly Republican. Unofficial results showed that Biden beat Trump by about 3,000 votes. This was a sharp contrast to Trump’s win in Antrim County in the 2016 presidential election. Trump supporters raised a red flag and it was investigated. An election worker configured the ballot scanners and reporting systems with slightly different versions of the ballot, which caused some results to not line up with the right candidate when the ballots were loaded into the Dominion Voting System. After this error was caught and the votes were recounted, Trump beat Biden by about 2,500 votes.

However, this was a rare incident. Most anomalies in recounts and audits shifted votes by less than a hundred votes, and they did not change the outcome.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, stated that there are several safeguards in place to ensure tabulation systems function as intended, malicious viruses are kept out, and irregularities are caught and corrected.

Most election experts agree that post-election audits can be conducted properly mostly with a paper trail. Votes recorded electronically can be manipulated or deleted.

One form of audit would test only a sufficient number of ballots that are mathematically needed to determine the accuracy of elections. Another more time consuming method would be to hand count each ballot. As of today, only 28 states require audits after elections.

SOLUTION

Can a blockchain based voting system provide a secure and viable option for the United States and for other countries?

Blockchain-based browsers might be utilized to ensure that internet-based content originates from a trusted source. Trusted media sources would register with these browsers and be assigned unique cryptographic identifiers. People who use these blockchain-based browsers would be assured that the news content they are viewing comes from a verified trusted source.

Blockchain-based databases can ensure that hackers cannot remove voters or alter voter identification prior to voting. Mobile apps or desktop based software could ensure that ID verification occurs at the device level. Biometric data could be used to digitally verify voters.

Blockchain-based voting systems can allow voters to securely cast their votes and then confirm that their vote was counted in the way that they chose. Crypto startups Votem and Voatz enable voters to verify their own votes. They allow voters to receive a QR code confirmation after voting. Voters can scan the QR code on another device to confirm the proper recording of their votes.

Election officials would be able to audit blockchain-based votes on a public blockchain, with the assurance that the votes were not altered or manipulated.

One country that practices online voting is Estonia. I didn’t use the voting system in Estonia, since I am not an Estonian citizen, but I do have e-residency for tax purposes. Once I was approved for the e-residency, I picked up a USB key and ID card with a smart chip and instructions from one of the Estonian embassies. I downloaded the software for the USB key.

To log in to view documents on the government site or to view contracts with private companies, I stick in the USB key. It pulls up the software window on the PC. I stick in the ID card with the smart chip into the USB key handle. I put in PIN #1 to log in. That allows me to view the documents. Then if I want to sign it, I enter PIN #2.

Because it requires a USB key and a smart ID and two PINs and a local software on a local PC, it seems very secure, especially if this is how Estonians vote.

Of course for a country the size of the US, it would be much more expensive. But if the US government charged a $5 tax (or fee) on each person’s tax return, it would be more than enough to pay for a USB key and smart chip ID and for the software and blockchain development and annual maintenance. Then this system could not only be used for voting, but for signing contracts, for paying taxes, for paying bills, etc. And what if the US government creates its own CBDC. It could be used to pay for taxes and bills and many other things.

For people who do not have access to a PC, perhaps they could use a smartphone app or go to a post office that would have a terminal to access this blockchain system to vote, to pay taxes, to pay bills, etc.

It would be much more secure and efficient to have something like this.

It just takes someone or a company and the right amount of factors to come together to make this happen in 4–8 years time.

Blockchain-based voting systems offer the three primary factors for a solid voting system:

1) Voters can verify that their votes were properly recorded.

2) Voters can verify that their votes were accurately counted in official results.

3) Voters can verify that the results of the election are accurately reported on a publicly-viewable blockchain.

Can the country come together to work toward a verifiable, uneditable blockchain-based voting system?

It depends on several different factors and many different groups of people working together to make this happen.