The European Parliament has just released a discussion paper, regarding the use of bitcoin and blockchain technology in elections, putting it together with electronic voting.
The entire study was written by Phillip Nicholas Boucher, a researcher for the European Union Think Tank. Boucher sees the adoption as a major change to the system of election process, when the control shall be shifted to the “tech-enabled community consensus”.
Boucher wrote in the study:
“Many experts agree that e-voting would require revolutionary developments in security systems. The debate is whether blockchain will represent a transformative or merely incremental development, and what its implications could be for the future of democracy.”
But this question did not arise only in the European Parliament. We have seen many cases of studies on the top level. This was analyzed in various forms in both the public and private sectors, with the idea being that a blockchain can allow users with software clients to signal preferences in distributed governance decisions.
The nature of bitcoin’s proof-of-work was even described in the original white paper as a kind of “vote” for what constitutes the longest chain of transactions. The paper speculates about what the blockchain-based voting system could look like, proposing the bitcoin blockchain as a preferable for something totally new and never tested.
“One way of developing BEV systems for e-voting is to create a new, bespoke system, designed to reflect the specific characteristics of the election and electorate,” Boucher wrote. “A second approach that may be cheaper and easier is to ‘piggyback’, running the election on a more established blockchain, such as that used by the virtual currency, bitcoin.”
Boucher admits also related risks. One of the most important is the need to maintain voter anonymity – what he called “a crucial element of democratic participation”. Something like this could become complicated in a wholly digitized environment, particularly within one that is at least somewhat managed by a third party.
Boucher ends by pointing to efforts in e-voting throughout Europe. But it is still not enough and more effort would be needed before this oculd become possible.
He wrote:
“…proposals to use blockchain in national elections would have to comply with several other areas of European law, including privacy and data protection for voters, and accessibility for all citizens.”
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