Why Do We Need Mobile Voting?
Democracy, at its core, is about participation. Yet many U.S. citizens have a hard time participating in the electoral process due to barriers that make voting difficult. Long lines at polling stations, limited operating hours, registration hurdles, and physical disabilities are just a few of the challenges that potential voters face. In our modern, technologically advanced world, there should be a solution that makes voting more accessible while addressing the security concerns that arise from easier access to the ballot box.
Enter mobile voting, a blockchain-powered technology that brings the power of voting into the palm of your hand.
Mobile voting has the potential to expand democratic participation. Imagine if every eligible voter - regardless of their location, physical ability, or work schedule - could cast their vote on Election Day using their smartphone. This would surely increase voter turnout and make our democracy more representative.
Greater participation in local, state, and national elections would produce political leaders who represent more of the interests of the general electorate, rather than just their highly-energized base of supporters. Leaders who speak for the middle rather than the fringes could help reduce political polarization and increase sound governance.
Mobile voting could be great for society, but it would be a dramatic change from our current systems ballots and it introduces new security risks.
Let’s dig into how this technology works and what is preventing it from catching on.
How Does Mobile Voting Work?
With blockchain-based mobile voting, users can register and cast votes from any device with an internet connection.
This system eliminates the need for election officials to manually count and verify votes by hand. Instead, it uses blockchain technology and encryption algorithms to ensure vote-count accuracy and transparency while preserving voter privacy.
A citizen’s first step is to authenticate their identity using multifactor authentication. The software utilizes several layers of security measures such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) user authentication protocols, device verification processes, biometric analysis (iris scanning/fingerprinting), facial recognition software, digital signature validation mechanisms, data encryption methods (AES 256), blockchain ledger technology (Ethereum) and advanced analytics techniques (machine learning).
This seems like a lot of onboarding! Let’s think of it as a stringent digital ID check, similar to setting up a bank app, but with added layers of verification for document scanning, liveness detection (dead people aren’t allowed to vote), and biometrics.
Once a voter's identity is confirmed, they are able to cast their vote. Every vote cast is recorded as a unique transaction on the blockchain.
This ledger is immutable, meaning that once the data (in this case, the vote) is recorded on Ethereum, it cannot be altered, providing a high level of security.
Moreover, because the ledger is shared across multiple nodes, there's no single point of failure that could compromise the integrity of the vote. It’s not like a database that you can hack by stealing someone’s password. The distributed nature of the blockchain also brings transparency to the process, as any changes to the ledger must be validated by multiple blockchain guardians (called “nodes” in crypto jargon). If a change to the ledger is proposed, all of the guardians can see it. If the proposed change is fraudulent, guardians can prevent it from being recorded on the ledger.
After casting their vote, voters receive a digital receipt. This is not just an “I voted” sticker, but an auditable proof that the vote was made in favor of a political candidate at the exact date and time of the vote. This verification adds another layer of trust to the process.
In essence, mobile voting aims to make the voting process more secure, verifiable, and accessible to all.
But will people feel comfortable enough to use it? Will elections authorities trust that the technology does what it is supposed to do? Will voters adopt this new technology?
Let’s explore what happens when this aspirational technology meets the real world.
(By the way, a company called Voatz has been pioneering this technology since 2014. You can learn more about their application in this Early podcast interview with their founder.)
What are the Barriers to Adoption?
Elections are a fundamentally important process in our society. Any hint of vulnerability could undermine public confidence in the process as well as the results of the election.
The biggest concern is security. Despite the fact that blockchain cryptography was developed for security reasons, there are many examples of high-profile hacks into blockchain accounts by individual hackers and foreign adversaries. CNN reported last month that half of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program was funded by cyberattacks and crypto theft.
Trust of new technology is another barrier. People are familiar with polling stations and absentee paper ballots and change can be unsettling.
Will people willingly share biometric information with a mobile application that records their votes in public elections? It’s not hard to imagine how things could go wrong for me if my name, an image of my face, and who I voted for in 2020 fell into the wrong hands.
Even if the mobile application allows voters to verify that their vote was received correctly, will they trust the immutability of this data entry?
Finally, there's the regulatory landscape. Some lawmakers are wary of electronic voting, and there have been successful efforts to ban it following the 2020 election. These legal and regulatory challenges could slow down the adoption of mobile voting.
Will Mobile Voting Catch On?
As technology continues to advance in ways that could make elections more inclusive and accessible, it's possible that mobile voting could play a significant role in the future of democracy. But as with any significant change, it will take time, testing, and a lot of public discussion.
Mobile voting, while presenting an innovative way to increase democratic participation, has several hurdles to overcome.