A Digital Democracy — The Dawn of a Financial-Political Revolution Caused by Blockchain

What was once seen as a political issue stereotypically only affecting dictatorships, electoral fraud is a topic that we have all found ourselves deeply intertwined with over the past few years as allegations of rigged elections flood our news pages. With world leaders pointing fingers at each other and claiming each other’s legitimacy a hoax, rising tensions between countries have been inevitable and the effects bleed down into the lives of the citizens living under their rule: ranging from harmful stereotypes to financial and social. A problem as large as election fraud seems to have been an incomprehensible one to solve: until the introduction of blockchain.

In 2008, a series of transactions were completed across the globe, by enigma Satoshi Nakamoto. As common and seemingly indifferent as this set of transactions seemed to be from the outside, they were bitcoin transactions — the foundations of one of the most revolutionary creations in finance: the blockchain. A simple database set triggered the age of digital currency into motion, and along with it strengthened the concept of democracy and continues to reverberate democratic concepts through its ever-increasing use.

Blockchain, sometimes referred to as Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is most simply, a storage of information on a computer — a type of database. A database is a large storage of information that is typically structured in table format to allow for easier searching and filtering for specific information. Databases are specifically designed to house extremely large amounts of information that can be accessed, filtered, and manipulated quickly and easily by any number of users at once. A blockchain database stores encrypted blocks of data and then chains them together to form a chronological, single source of truth for the data. Every chain consists of multiple blocks and is made up of three main elements: One is the data possessed by the block itself, and another is a 32-bit whole number called a nonce. The nonce is randomly generated when a block is created, which then generates a block header hash. Lastly, the hash is a 256-bit number wedded to the nonce. It must start with a huge number of zeroes.

The process of mining a block isn’t easy as every block has its own unique nonce and hash, but also references the hash of the previous block in the chain — so you can imagine it is a difficult process. Miners must use software such as BeMine and ECOS to solve the complicated mathematical problems involved in finding a nonce that generates an accepted hash. There are roughly four billion nonce-hash combinations that must be mined (considering the fact the nonce is 32 bits and the has is 256) before the correct one is found. When the correct one is eventually found, miners are said to have found the ‘golden nonce’ and their block is subsequently added to the chain. Finding one requires an enormous amount of time and computing power.
Blockchain makes the history of any digital asset unalterable and transparent using decentralization and cryptographic hashing. It’s extremely difficult to manipulate blockchain technology in any way as making a change to any block in the chain doesn’t simply require re-mining the block with the change, but rather all of the blocks that come after.

One of the utmost important and unique concepts in blockchain is its decentralisation — it is a distributed ledger system, via the nodes connected to the chain, meaning that no singular computer or organisation can own the chain. A node can be any form of electronic device that keeps copies of the blockchain and thus keeps the network functioning, and the net the network must algorithmically approve any newly mined block for the chain to be updated, trusted, and verified. The beauty of this is the transparency that comes with it — every single action can be easily checked and viewed, and every transaction maker is given a unique alphanumeric ID code that shows their transactions and makes them readily available to anyone. Due to this, blockchain creates a sense of trust and integrity among its users and can certainly be viewed as the scalability of trust through technology.
But how, exactly, does any of this help with democracy? That’s when the concept of voting blocks comes in. One of the biggest problems that blockchain’s decentralized muscle can solve is voter fraud.

In a world where data is becoming an ever more valuable commodity, blockchain technology helps make this data secure and difficult to interfere with. As it is theoretically immutable, many are starting to support the concept of introducing blockchain into the voting process, essentially bolstering citizens’ trust in democracy and elections. The voting data cannot be taken down or influenced by a single party, simply because it is decentralised — The 2020 presidential elections and the Belarus elections have shown us how faith in ballots is dwindling. The current voting system is largely stuck in the 19th century, and those who wish to play a part in democracy and the voting process must leave their homes and submit paper ballots. Bringing this process online is one that has been tried, but has been deemed as difficult to provide accurate results due to large gaps in security. A blockchain-centred system wouldn’t have to concern itself with the security of internet connections and computer viruses, because hackers with access to one account will not be able to affect other nodes. Apart from this, a huge degree of privacy is provided to the public as they can vote without revealing their identity or political preferences to the general public, and authorities will be able to evaluate these votes with absolute certainty knowing that each id is attributed to one vote: no fakes can be created, and tampering is impossible. By implementing blockchain voting, voter apathy rates will certainly go down, as providing an easy and secure way to cast a vote from a phone or a computer is very hassle-free. Currently, a single vote costs between $7 and $25 — whereas the expenses of a single blockchain vote amount to $0.50.

This concept already ventures outside the realm of the theoretical — the US election saw the first ever blockchain vote cast in Utah, and whilst this may be a small step, it is one that is slowly starting to reveal the many pros of blockchain voting to people and governments alike. There are companies such as Horizon State who are working on implementing this idea and going beyond voting systems — they have started applying blockchain to census systems and business decisions. Blockchain is laying the foundations for a direct democracy, where people can decide the course of policy for themselves.
Whilst many have argued that technology has destroyed our democracies, there are clearly ways we can utilise it to restore democracies and return the power to the people in ways that never could have been envisioned 20 years ago. As our technologies strengthen, so can our democracies: and implementing blockchain voting will be the first step in the marrying of politics and technology in a way that will make our global community stronger than ever before.

Written by Francesca Crachilova
Student at St Paul’s Girls School