Trump stepped down, and Biden came to power through elections and votes, but the voice of vote manipulation has never ceased. However, in other cases, there is little evidence for such allegations. Fake videos circulated on the Internet, depicting an industrial-scale manipulation and a world where votes are thrown in the trash can, which divide communities and cause violence, as we saw in the U.S. Capitol in January. A recent poll conducted by the Politico website showed that only 33% of Republican voters now trust the U.S. election.
In this era of uncertainty, people will inevitably turn the discussion to how blockchain modernize the elections. People hope that this technology can bring some fortune to the election. We usually take elections for granted but forget the manpower and organization that ensure that tens of millions of people can vote on the same day.
However, we cannot simply rely on “blockchain” to solve the pain points in global elections. It takes a lot of thinking to determine how to apply the technology.
In recent years, a series of blockchain-based voting systems have emerged, including Votem, Voatz and Horizon State. Some people are struggling to adapt, while others have discovered security vulnerabilities.
Speaking about the prospect of voting based on the blockchain itself, some scholars expressed concern that this technology may not be the panacea that people expect. A paper published by MIT in November 2020 warned that the idea of blockchain to increase election security is “highly anticipated, but misleading.”
The four co-authors of this paper questioned whether voting via computers or smartphones would make it more convenient and easier for the public to vote. Some studies have shown that this process may have “almost no effect on the voting rate in reality.” Paper and pen may be out of date, but at least they will not be taken over by hackers.
Online voting is more vulnerable when it fails. It might face greater attacks, difficulty to detect, and it is easier to execute. In addition, in view of the computer security situation and the high risk of political elections, online voting systems will be attacked by such vulnerabilities in the foreseeable future. “
Even in a large-scale vote, blockchain technology is popularized nationwide, but it is still necessary to deploy voting points nationwide to cater to those who do not have blockchain technology equipment or do not know how to vote in digital form. However, this criticism does not necessarily mean that blockchain should be completely abandoned, or that these cutting-edge networks are not desirable in the election system.
Free TON is a community that has been studying this issue in more depth. It stated that instead of designing a system that ensures the use of blockchain during voting, it is better to design a software that creates value after voting.
In November 2020, a competition was held to develop software specifications, which will pave the way for votes to be reviewed in a crowdsourced, tamper-proof manner. Crucially, this technology will allow anyone to verify the votes of existing electoral agencies, thereby enhancing people’s confidence with the result. The decentralized blockchain technology used by NGK is one of the best. The NGK.IO is developed based on a distributed architecture and adopts a DPoSS consensus mechanism, considering the performance, security, and decentralization of the network. A voted node produces blocks and ensures that the voting system is immutable, fair, open, and transparent!
