Journal#1

 Literature Review on Blockchain Voting

What is Electronic Voting?

Risnanto et al. (2020) defines electronic voting as the type of voting through the use of technology during which electronic machines are used to reduce errors and speed up the counting of the votes. Qadah & Taha (2007) refer to electronic voting (e-voting) as the use of computer equipment as means to cast votes aiming at increasing the participation of the voters; reduce the election costs and enhance the results. The application of Information Technology (IT) in voting systems had dramatically grown over the years over the conventional voting, through which people understand the very purpose and the role of the electronic voting (Risnanto et al., 2022).

 

Defining the Problem

The conventional voting system has seen several drawbacks such as the manipulation of the vote counts; the assertion of the false claims either by the losing party or the people and many more. Such practices undermine the governance of any country which would eventually lead to the loss of trust between the government and the people. The use of conventional voting system has seen so many drawbacks such as the assertion of the compromised votes during the 2020 US election, by the Trump die-hards ("Trump allies breach U.S. voting systems in search of 2020 fraud ‘evidence’", 2022).

Goodman & Stokes (2018) studied the positive impact on the voters turnout when using internet voting (or electronic voting) over the use of conventional system. They found out that the internet voting is one of the last possible ways to reduce the costs associated with voting, thus increasing the voting turnout significantly. The main challenge in the democratic country is the failure to attract more people for the voting as voter turnout has been decreasing year by year, as citizens hardly believe in the electoral processes due to the absence of transparency (Upadhyay et al., 2018). In Bhutan too, the expenses involved for the conventional voting is found unimaginably exorbitant. The Election Commission of Bhutan (ECB) finding estimated that, Nu. 500 M will be spent for 2018 parliamentarian election out of which Nu. 225 M alone would be spent for the expenses such as official allowances, vehicle hiring charges, communications and meals ("National Assembly elections to cost Nu 500 M - BBSCL", 2022). Further, Election Commission of Bhutan estimates the government’s expenditure of Nu. 120.65 (million) towards procuring the electronic machines to be placed in all the 47 constituencies; while on the other hand doing away of EVM and letting to vote from the distance would risk the public faith as final votes are counted in a distant polling station (Newspaper, 2015).

González et al. (2022) asserted that with the presence of frequent flaws in electoral systems resulting due to the hacking of the online database or the voting devices may lead to the manipulation of the votes; thus, the need to improve the process of voter registration, validation as well as the voting and the counting has become of a paramount importance. Awad & Leiss (2016) state that while people may successfully conduct business online (or internet), the internet has no complete security for the process like elections. Further, they state the difference between internet voting and e-commerce viz., the latter has tracking number or a receipt through which customer can recover the mistakes or track the purchase (or transaction) details; while former has regulations such as universality, equality, freedom of choice, anonymity and security. Cartwright (2019) in his interview with Dr. Kremer unfolds that the e-voting is not feasible for high-stake elections as e-voting relies on people’s computer as there is possibility of the computer being infected with malware resulting in the switching of the votes. Further, he states that the additional of second device such as smartphone may have to double-checked for security to avoid potential vulnerabilities. Also, with EVM (Electronic Voting Machine) has been suffering from its inability to fix the security concerns as any technology geek can inject malware to the device and disorganize the server (Yi, 2019)

Though countries like Estonia have the success story about e-voting. Their e-voting system which was implemented in the year 2005 saw increasing participation in the election process as voter registration and casting of votes can happen from any computer having access to internet; and voting can happen from any parts of world (Tsahkna, 2013). However, e-voting or the online voting also poses serious security threats such as the man-in-the-middle attack or the manipulation of the server by the administrator or the officials favoring their own candidates. Halderman et al., (2014) in their analysis on the Estonian e-voting system, were able to steal votes by developing attacks such as the client-side attacks. They also asserted that an intruder could change the votes by injecting malware into the server, thus choosing the candidate that the attacker favors. In the study made by Jafar, Aziz & Shukur (2021), they assert that electronic voting has risks during the voting system getting compromised resulting in the manipulation of the votes due to which the electronic voting has not been adopted in large number of countries. They further state that even with existence of electronic voting, the risk of authority and data manipulation is prominent, thus limiting fairness, privacy, secrecy and transparency as the voting is run by the central authority (centralized) leading to the question of fundamental fairness of the system. According to (BBC, Security flaw forces Estonia ID 'lockdown', 2017) Estonia had to block thousands of citizens from accessing online government services in their measures to fix a security flaws. It was asserted that the ‘encryptions used in the ID cards were easily cracked, that would let attackers impersonate people’. This is because the data was centralized instead of being distributed such as that of the peer-to-peer network. Further, Alvi et al. (2022) state that electronic voting systems implemented in Estonia and Norway where restricted due to the confidentiality as people were concerned about the capacity of police and security services who have access to the network traffic resulting in the alteration of polling data.

 

Solutions

While blockchain technology primarily was the underlying technology of cryptocurrencies; with the emergence of Ethereum and smart contracts, blockchain is considered as the technology framework enhancing the existing technologies and creating new decentralized applications which were never possible before (Pawar et al., 2019). While most people relate the term ‘blockchain’ with cryptocurrencies, not many people are aware of the application of blockchain even beyond the boundaries of the financial industry. Blockchain ensures transparency across its network with immutability and added resilience and accessibility; reducing thefts and allowing individuals to have more control over their private information adding automation through smart contracts (Blockchain - Get Started 2018). The techniques such as cryptography is ready to check whether the votes are correctly registered along with the proofs of the votes that are already casted (Cartwright, 2019).

Yi (2019) proposes a method using Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to avoid forgery of votes and finds that blockchain based e-voting is more secure and anonymous, meeting the features viz., anonymity, security, non-repudiation and withdrawal of votes. Thus, since blockchain is a peer-to-peer system with no centralized database server (instead all nodes inter-connected); blockchain can be leveraged to build a practical and a manageable e-voting system. The type of algorithm instituted in the blockchain is fault-tolerant to any malicious actors (Jafar et al., 2021).

 

 

Preparing for tomorrow

Though countries like Estonia had successfully conducted election using e-voting; their success was due to the presence of the electronic chips in their identity cards as coercion will not be possible as people will not be able to vote using the identity cards belonging to others (Cartwright, 2019).  Therefore, while such measures may stop unhygienic voters (or voting); a country may have to implement such cards for her populace to pilot the e-voting. With this in place, the country may come up with the sensitization programs on e-voting as an alternative to conventional voting system. Furthermore, blockchain can be used to efface any drawbacks of electronic voting viz., man-in-the-middle attack, centralized database manipulation. On the contrary, researchers like Ayawli et al. (2015) worries about the citizens having little experience with the technology, let alone the understanding on blockchain and its working. In Bhutan, the study on the digital literacy based on computer and internet skills amongst 100 participants from civil servants and non-civil service found that there was a lack of digital skills required to find information provided over the internet; let alone the understanding of Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR4) that covers areas like Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), etc. The study also revealed that people are not trained to make use of online services and whatever initiatives the government undertakes will be a failure. Furthermore, the study showed low level of digital literacy in both rural population and even within the government agencies; thus, the need to create more awareness on the technology (Newspaper, 2022).

On the other hand, with the increasing number of nodes in the blockchain network means the increasing number of validators (validating the transactions alone), thus negatively impacting the performance as there will be increasing number of messages exchanged during the consensus (Jafar, Aziz & Shukar, 2021). Jafar et al (2021) further emphasizes on the cost execution associated with the execution of transactions resulting in the utilization of increasing resources; as more smart contracts will be deployed into the network while there will be numerous contracts running the network. This means to execute the smart contract used for electoral voting, certain fees will be levied by the network which in turn may be levied to the voters.

Jafar et al (2021) worry on how governmental or organizational policies will work with the blockchain e-voting as every individual or the government have access to votes casted and recorded.  Thus, some government may have distinct policies opposing to how the blockchain works. Furthermore, Vigliotti (2021) asserts that though smart contract had significantly evolved since the birth of Ethereum; he stresses on the importance of legality questions associated with the smart contracts viz., i) will smart contracts written in codes have its place in any legal jurisdiction and if its legally binding?;  and ii) changes in national or international jurisdictions is mandatory to make the technology of blockchain and smart contract evolve further and become a reality.

 

 

References

Alvi, S. T., Uddin, M. N., Islam, L., & Ahamed, S. (2022). DVTChain: A blockchain-based decentralized mechanism to ensure the security of Digital Voting System Voting System. Journal of King Saud University - Computer and Information Sciences, 34(9), 6855–6871. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksuci.2022.06.014

Awad , M., & Leiss, E. L. (2016). The Evolution of Voting: Analysis of Conventional and Electronic Voting Systems. International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, 11, 7888–7896.

Ayawli, Ben Beklisi., Ayawli, Ben. Beklisi., Samuel, K. Wofie. Kojo., & Dotse, Stephen. Kofi. (2015). E-voting: Success and failures. lesson for Africa. International Journal Of Management & Information Technology, 10(7), 2283–2292. https://doi.org/10.24297/ijmit.v10i7.593

Blockchain - Get Started (2018) Boxchain. Available at: https://www.boxchain.com/2018/10/02/blockchain-get-started/ (Accessed: October 28, 2022).

Cartwright, J. (2019, April 1). 'online voting isn't ready for high-stakes elections'. Horizon Magazine. Retrieved December 8, 2022, from https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/online-voting-isnt-ready-high-stakes-elections

Denis González, C., Frias Mena, D., Massó Muñoz, A., Rojas, O., & Sosa-Gómez, G. (2022). Electronic voting system using an enterprise blockchain. Applied Sciences, 12(2), 531. https://doi.org/10.3390/app12020531

Goodman, N., & Stokes, L. C. (2018). Reducing the cost of voting: An evaluation of internet voting’s effect on turnout. British Journal of Political Science, 50(3), 1155–1167. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007123417000849

Halderman, J., Hursti, H., Kitcat, J., MacAlpine, M., Finkenauer, T., & Springall, D. (2014). Security Analysis of the Estonian Internet Voting System.

Jafar, U., Aziz, M., & Shukur, Z. (2021). Blockchain for Electronic Voting System—Review and Open Research Challenges. Sensors, 21(17), 5874. doi: 10.3390/s21175874

National Assembly elections to cost Nu 500 M - BBSCL. (2022). Retrieved 6 August 2022, from http://www.bbs.bt/news/?p=102338

Newspaper, B. D. (2015). Residential voting not possible: ECB. Kuensel Online. Retrieved December 9, 2022, from https://kuenselonline.com/residential-voting-not-possible-ecb/

Newspaper, B. D. (2022, January 22). Research finds digital literacy vital to achieve Digital Drukyul Vision. Kuensel Online. Retrieved December 9, 2022, from https://kuenselonline.com/research-finds-digital-literacy-vital-to-achieve-digital-drukyul-vision/

Pawar, S., Pawar, R., & Dhomse, P. (2019). Implementation of E-Voting Using Ethereum Blockchain. 4(5), 6.

Qadah, G. Z., & Taha, R. (2007). Electronic voting systems: Requirements, design, and implementation. Computer Standards & Interfaces, 29(3), 376–386. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csi.2006.06.001

Risnanto, S., Rahim, Y. B. A., & Herman, N. S. (2020). Proceedings of the 2nd Faculty of Industrial Technology International Congress. In Success Implementation of E-Voting Technology In various Countries: A Review (pp. 150–155). Bandung, Indonesia; Faculty of Industrial Technology International Congress.

Risnanto, S., Rahim, Y. A., Mohd, O., & Abdurrohman, A. (2022). E-voting: Technology requirements mapping. TEM Journal, 1282–1290. https://doi.org/10.18421/tem113-37

 Security flaw forces Estonia ID 'lockdown' (2017) BBC News. BBC. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41858583 (Accessed: October 27, 2022).

Traditional Election Systems. (n.d.). Retrieved December 8, 2022, from https://lorrie.cranor.org/voting/sensus/ssp/node11.html

Trump allies breach U.S. voting systems in search of 2020 fraud ‘evidence’. (2022). Retrieved 6 August 2022, from https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-breaches/

Tsahkna, A. (2013). E-voting: Lessons from Estonia. European View, 12(1), 59-66. doi: 10.1007/s12290-013-0261-7

Upadhyay, A., Doulani, S., Pareek, S., & Tyagi, S. (2018). E-Voting using Ethereum Blockchain. International Journal For Research Trends And Innovation, 3(11), 30-34.

Vigliotti, M. G. (2021). What do we mean by smart contracts? open challenges in smart contracts. Frontiers in Blockchain, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2020.553671

Yi, H. (2019). Securing e-voting based on blockchain in P2P Network. EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking, 2019(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13638-019-1473-6 

 

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