A developing technology called blockchain has gotten attention from election officials, startups, and even Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang as a potential way to boost voter turnout and public trust in election results.

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I study blockchain technology and its potential use in fighting fraud, strengthening cybersecurity, and securing voting. I see promising signs that blockchain-based voting could make it more convenient for people to vote, thereby boosting voter turnout. And blockchain systems can be effective at strengthening the security of devices, networks, and critical systems such as electricity grids, as well as protecting personal privacy. The few small-scale tests run so far have identified problems and vulnerabilities in the digital systems and government administrative procedures that must be resolved before blockchain-based voting can be considered safe and trustworthy. Therefore I don’t see clear evidence that it can prevent, or even detect, election fraud. How it works There are a few steps in a blockchain-based voting system, which uses technology to mirror the process of in-person voting. First, the system needs to verify a voter’s identity—often by having the user upload a photo of a government-issued ID and then a photo or video self-portrait. The system confirms the ID’s validity, and facial recognition software makes sure the person in the self-portrait is the person on the ID. Then the user is authenticated as eligible to cast a vote. Only at that point does blockchain technology actually enter the process. The system gives each authenticated voter a digital token that represents the person’s vote and a list of the digital addresses to which he or she can send that token. Each address indicates a vote for a particular candidate or an answer to a ballot question.

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A big test in Moscow The most recent—and largest—use of a blockchain-based voting system was in the city council election in Moscow, Russia, on September 8. Because of concerns that the system was not set up in a secure way, only three of the city’s 20 electoral precincts allowed voters to use a blockchain-based mobile voting app to cast their ballot from anywhere with an internet connection. Again, the evidence showed a boost in voter turnout: The city’s overall turnout rate was around 17% of registered voters. That includes a 90% turnout among the voters who had registered to use the system. However, technological complications barred some people from voting, which led at least one losing candidate to object that he would have won if everything had worked properly. That’s the sort of problem that is most worrying for people who hope using mathematical principles and computerized encryption will help the public have trust in election outcomes. Key challenges unsolved There are several obstacles in the way of blockchain ever becoming useful for large-scale, legally binding voting. One is that most people have little understanding of how blockchain systems work. Another, equally vital, is that even experts don’t have a way to identify every possible irregularity in online voting. Voting on paper, by contrast, is well studied and easily verified and audited. One crucial aspect of a blockchain voting system is the method by which the computer system verifies voters’ identities. When a verified voter establishes an account on the system, that process creates a digital key that identifies them securely when casting a ballot. A more complex key is harder to hack but also takes more computing resources to verify. It will be important to find a way to protect the integrity of the voting process, without exhausting government budgets buying advanced computing power. The computational power required may make blockchain systems inefficient for voting on a nationwide scale—or even statewide, in populous states like California and Texas.

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The company has said it would not release that information because it had a nondisclosure agreement with the auditors, and for fear its proprietary system design might be discovered by competitors. It’s possible that blockchain-based voting could boost voter participation rates, but there’s no evidence yet that it is better at preventing election fraud. With plenty of potential trouble spots outside the system itself, and little public transparency within it, I have to conclude that blockchain voting is not yet safe or ready for service. Nir Kshetri is a professor of management at University of North Carolina, Greensboro. This story was republished from The Conversation.