Some Blockchain in My Voting, Please: Sierra Leone Implements Innovative System

[Raevenlord]

Putting aside discussion of cryptocurrencies, bubbles, and the debated absence of intrinsic value, blockchain itself has a myriad of uses that are still in their exploration infancy. One such usage - one that was arguably first thought of by Philip K. Dick, albeit unknowingly - was the usage of such a system in voting, as a way to provide transparency and trust towards the system which (supposedly) materializes the will of the people.

When asked which country would be the first to implement a Blockchain-based election (which ran at 70% of the voting stations), Sierra Leone would likely be completely absent as an option. The country, which has a population of 7.4 million, has a known history of political and societal unrest, having seen multiple UN interventions in its (relatively) recent history. The company had no technological capacity to build such a blockchain-based voting system - and thus turned to an outside provider. Agora was the chosen company, which aimed to power Sierra Leone's presidential election through anonymously stored votes in an immutable ledger, thereby offering instant access to the election results. The wins come not only in counting speed and actual logistics and state spending improvements, though: the usage of blockchain obviously also ushers in transparency.





"Anonymized votes/ballots are being recorded on Agora's blockchain, which will be publicly available for any interested party to review, count and validate," said Leonardo Gammar, CEO of Agora. "This is the first time a government election is using blockchain technology." He added that "Sierra Leone wishes to create an environment of trust with the voters in a contentious election, especially looking at how the election will be publicly viewed post-election. By using blockchain as a means to immutably record ballots and results, the country hopes to create legitimacy around the election and reduce fall-out from opposition parties."



I must say I absolutely believe in blockchain technology's importance to bring the democratic system towards a modern, tamper-proof era that fully eliminates human error (and human dishonesty). As it has become clear that electronic voting systems based on typical electronic technology are hardly tamper proof and are susceptible to hacks by interested third parties, the usage of a decentralized, public network that uses the blockchain's Merkle tree systems sounds as the perfect solution. "If you believe that most countries will use some form of digital voting 50 years from now, then blockchain is the only technology that has been created which can provide an end-to-end verifiable and fully-transparent voting solution for this future," said Leonardo Gammar. Here's to that.

If you were curious regarding that Philip K. Dick reference, I've leafed through my short story collection to provide you this quote, from The Variable Man, and added a link to the Project Gutenberg copy:

"This gimmick makes it possible for citizens to raise and decide issues directly. They won't have to wait for the Council to verbalize a measure. Any citizen can transmit his will with one of these, make his needs register on a central control that automatically responds. When a large enough segment of the population wants a certain thing done, these little gadgets set up an active field that touches all the others. An issue won't have to go through a formal Council. The citizens can express their will long before any bunch of gray-haired old men could get around to it." Remove centralized and add a public ledger, and you've got the (currently) best possible use of a blockhain.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[seronx]

If it works as intended... I fully support our blockchain overlords.

 

[Shihab]

That's a very interesting use for Blockchain! Could make rigging votes considerably harder even! Alas, it won't make it impossible. Whoever controls the authentication and registration controls the input, and so they can poison the blockchain with false votes. If you're dealing with a corrupt, totalitarian regime, well, there's your problem...

Fully outsourcing the gig might solve this specific issue, but that opens up the doors to foreign interference paranoia (sup, 'muricans!). Can't really trust those imperialists not to make sure their puppets are still on throne (again, sup 'muricans!).

 

[Th3pwn3r]

Weird coincidence but Diamonds From Sierra Leone by Kanye West came on right before I clicked this thread.

 

[Chaitanya]

That's a very interesting use for Blockchain! Could make rigging votes considerably harder even! Alas, it won't make it impossible. Whoever controls the authentication and registration controls the input, and so they can poison the blockchain with false votes. If you're dealing with a corrupt, totalitarian regime, well, there's your problem...

Fully outsourcing the gig might solve this specific issue, but that opens up the doors to foreign interference paranoia (sup, 'muricans!). Can't really trust those imperialists not to make sure their puppets are still on throne (again, sup 'muricans!).

But vote rigging will be much harder and might make effort not worth the reward. Nice use of tech

 

[bug]

A neat side effect could be that with instant access to results, people can monitor how their favorite candidate/party fares and hopefully convince more of them to get off their rears and actually vote.

 

[the54thvoid]

Just to add a query regarding NATO interventions. It was the UN that intervened and a British Force helped stabilise the government in early 2000's. NATO would have little to do with African campaigns on Peacekeeping. Unless, I'm mistaken? Although not on the topic of Blockchain, it's important to clarify the accompanying story.

 

[PowerOfLard]

Just to add a query regarding NATO interventions. It was the UN that intervened and a British Force helped stabilise the government in early 2000's. NATO would have little to do with African campaigns on Peacekeeping. Unless, I'm mistaken? Although not on the topic of Blockchain, it's important to clarify the accompanying story.

You are mistaken.
"In the weeks that followed, American forces were in the forefront of NATO operations against Libya. More than 8,000 American personnel in warships and aircraft were deployed in the area. At least 3,000 targets were struck in 14,202 strike sorties, 716 of them in Tripoli and 492 in Brega. "

 

[Raevenlord]

Just to add a query regarding NATO interventions. It was the UN that intervened and a British Force helped stabilise the government in early 2000's. NATO would have little to do with African campaigns on Peacekeeping. Unless, I'm mistaken? Although not on the topic of Blockchain, it's important to clarify the accompanying story.

Triple checking, it appears that intervention, even of American troops, was done via UN deployment, not by NATO, as originally written in the piece.

I apologize for the historical inaccuracy. Happens when one writes solely from his memory. I've updated the story accordingly.

Thanks for bringing that up =)

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Is it proof of work or proof of stake? The former is wasteful, the latter is vulnerable. There's also still the potential of tampering at the voting machines themselves.

I'm not sure how they're enforcing one vote per person either. Blockchain can only enforce accounts.

It makes sense for a relatively poor country like Sierra Leone because the cost of implementing a dedicated system is likely too much for them to bare.

 

[the54thvoid]

You are mistaken.
"In the weeks that followed, American forces were in the forefront of NATO operations against Libya. More than 8,000 American personnel in warships and aircraft were deployed in the area. At least 3,000 targets were struck in 14,202 strike sorties, 716 of them in Tripoli and 492 in Brega. "

Not Sierra Leone. Libya wasn't so much an African civil war as a removal of a thorn in the West's side. Albeit, NATO forces did intervene to help the UN. And what a disaster that was.

 

[R-T-B]

The former is wasteful,

As I have told you before, not when done small scale on a closed network.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

But it is. The machines are spending more clocks on doing some frivolous, complicated math instead of actually performing the intended task. The size of the network doesn't matter because all that impacts is difficulty.

 

[R-T-B]

But it is. The machines are spending more clocks on doing some frivolous, complicated math instead of actually performing the intended task. The size of the network doesn't matter because all that impacts is difficulty.

They aren't "frivolous, complicated math." They are the same very encryption that secures the vote.

This isn't some gpufarm, either.

 

[Shihab]

But vote rigging will be much harder and might make effort not worth the reward. Nice use of tech

In a system where no single party holds absolute power? Sure, this trick could make it practically impossible for one candidate to corrupt the counting process. But it's kinda moot when we are talking about people who control the entire pipeline from who is a citizen/can vote, through counting the votes, to announcing the result.

Election fraud by adding false votes is a thing, and "worth it" isn't a logic you'd argue with people who won't relinquish power even when everything's falling apart around them.

The concept of elections itself has been abused before.

 

[R-T-B]

In a system where no single party holds absolute power? Sure, this trick could make it practically impossible for one candidate to corrupt the counting process. But it's kinda moot when we are talking about people who control the entire pipeline from who is a citizen/can vote, through counting the votes, to announcing the result.

Election fraud by adding false votes is a thing, and "worth it" isn't a logic you'd argue with people who won't relinquish power even when everything's falling apart around them.

The concept of elections itself has been abused before.

Basically, elections are only as good as the polltakers who conduct them. Blockchain can't save us from that.

 

[Shihab]

Basically, elections are only as good as the polltakers who conduct them. Blockchain can't save us from that.

At the risk of sounding too much of a cynic, the list of things that can go wrong with an election starts long before they are even proposed. Like the birth of the idiots who will vote for the other candidate.

 

[Basard]

Yes, make a simple, foolproof process even more complex to the point to where only .001% of the population actually understand what's going on.

Simple solution: Get rid of all humans and there will be no fraud.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I think it really comes back to privacy versus security. No one wants their government to know a lot of stuff about them but the only way to make a secure voting system starts with what you are, what you have, and what you know:
1) biometrics of the facial structure, iris, and finger print. If someone is trying to commit voter fraud, this information can ID them long after the election.
2) chipped voter ID card that pulls your record from the database and enforces the one-vote-per-card-per-election policy. The vote can't be changed without the presence of the card.
3) something that's not public knowledge that's quick to answer (likely in multiple choice format with three phonies).

Every voting machine should have it's own private/public key encryption system for conveying results (these are pre-registered with the servers). If someone manages to hack a single machine, every other machine should be as monumental of a task as the first and an audit at the servers will expose the compromised machine.

Source code of the entire system should be open source for public audit.

The individual voting machines don't store anything unless there's problems with communicating to the voting servers. All of the data ends up on the servers so if fraud occurs, tampering with the machines won't get them anywhere.


TL;DR: treat the voting process like it's a level 4 biohazard lab.


I don't think blockchain adds anything of value to this process.

 

[Fx]

That's a very interesting use for Blockchain! Could make rigging votes considerably harder even! Alas, it won't make it impossible. Whoever controls the authentication and registration controls the input, and so they can poison the blockchain with false votes. If you're dealing with a corrupt, totalitarian regime, well, there's your problem...

Fully outsourcing the gig might solve this specific issue, but that opens up the doors to foreign interference paranoia (sup, 'muricans!). Can't really trust those imperialists not to make sure their puppets are still on throne (again, sup 'muricans!).

They'll figure out a way to ensure their puppets stay in power. Blockchain or not.