You can read a some of my comments in this thread addressing various concerns. That said, I would still agree. At least for the next 5-10 years (until we have Starlink-level internet and advances in cryptography/UX), electronic voting systems are not feasible.
The nice thing about blockchains is you can avoid DDoS by only allowing people who are "authorized" to "talk to" the blockchain. This can be done by ensuring that "Right to Vote" tokens are only sent to those who would otherwise be participating in the election, and ensuring they can only submit one vote, and one transaction, by sending that token to a specific burn account. This way, with 300 million voters, you would have a cap of 300 million votes. No one else could "submit" a vote, because they wouldn't have permission to on the blockchain network.
This is how blockchains avoid DDoS attacks already, but open and public blockchains have the problem that anyone can buy their native currencies, and with enough money can spam the network. With a "permissioned" system for elections, this risk would be mitigated.
EDIT: I would appreciate if the downvoters engaged with me or explained their reason for downvoting.
My main criticism is that these systems don't address the actual challenges that elections face, and the introduction of networked technology likely introduces a lot of poorly-understood risks.
I'm a poll worker and a security researcher. Doing the former has really given me perspective on the latter. While a lot of blockchain voting proponents come up with all sorts of schemes to solve ballot-stuffing attacks, the reality is that we really don't care about that on the ground; it's just not a problem we encounter. The real problems come from more mundane things like power outages, being physically locked out of the polling place, poll worker exhaustion, out-of-date records used to verify eligiblity, and voters taking a bathroom break and subsequently walking away with their ballots unaccounted for.
Technology really doesn't solve any of that. In fact, introducing networked computers into elections only makes it less scrutable to the public. In my precinct, the first voter to show up gets to verify that the ballot bin is empty and that the scanner reports all zeroes for the count. Then they witness us putting security seals on the equipment and reporting the serial numbers to the county. Anyone from the voting public can understand this and do their part to keep us honest. Computers make this sort of simple check inaccessible to most people.
This is why I've also repeatedly stated in this thread that I am not in favor or blockchain-based voting, or even broad-scale mail-in voting (yet).
You're correct to an extent, but I believe with advances in cryptography (zero-knowledge proofs, quantum-secure encryption, etc.), these concerns will fall away. People regularly use their smartphones to do things that are high-risk and need to be secure. Take online banking.
Of course, elections carry an entirely different set of challenges, but to say they can't in theory be solved with careful encryption, analysis, and review, is (in my opinion) foolish. I will again bring up the example of Estonia, which has had massive success with its hybrid in-person / e-Voting system. Estonians have been educated by their government on how the technology works and how it is auditable. Every Estonian carries an ID card which they use to access their bank details, get healthcare, and vote.
I would also argue that technology does solve the problems you listed, and very well!
> Blockchain voting proponents come up with all sorts of schemes to solve ballot-stuffing attacks, the reality is that we really don't care about that on the ground; it's just not a problem we encounter. The real problems come from more mundane things like power outages, being physically locked out of the polling place, poll worker exhaustion, out-of-date records used to verify eligiblity, and voters taking a bathroom break and subsequently walking away with their ballots unaccounted for.
Except for power outages, none of these issues would occur in a remote, electronic voting system. A well implemented e-Voting system could expand voter rights and access to voting tremendously.
It's worth working on to be sure. Another thing I think is worth working on is educating people on what blockchain actually is (which it seems you are doing). I think paper voting works primarily because people know and trust how the votes are counted and how they get to the counters, for the most part. But personally I barely understand transistors and flip flops let alone blockchain and that makes me slightly worried about how it might be possible to exploit them.
I fully share your concerns. There is a massive amount of blockchain infrastructure which 0.0001% of the world population comprehends. Beyond further technical development and the creation of UX and UI libraries around blockchain internals (like https://blockstack.org is trying to do), we need more education.
I'd love to have more debates like this, but I'm trying to help researchers with simple to use blockchain-based tools (like https://assembl.app/chronos, our timestamping service for research outputs).
Paper voting is, in my opinion, still the most "secure" way to vote. This is mainly because any sort of voter fraud requires a lot of people and a lot of time, whereas flawed technology can be hacked by very few in a very short amount of time.
I'm interested to see how this discussion develops.
The nice thing about blockchains is you can avoid DDoS by only allowing people who are "authorized" to "talk to" the blockchain. This can be done by ensuring that "Right to Vote" tokens are only sent to those who would otherwise be participating in the election, and ensuring they can only submit one vote, and one transaction, by sending that token to a specific burn account. This way, with 300 million voters, you would have a cap of 300 million votes. No one else could "submit" a vote, because they wouldn't have permission to on the blockchain network.
This is how blockchains avoid DDoS attacks already, but open and public blockchains have the problem that anyone can buy their native currencies, and with enough money can spam the network. With a "permissioned" system for elections, this risk would be mitigated.
EDIT: I would appreciate if the downvoters engaged with me or explained their reason for downvoting.