The Election Commission has partnered with the Indian Institute of Technology to create a Blockchain voting solution in India. The system will allow citizens to vote outside of their city of registration while preventing them from voting more than once.
18 February, 2020 | AtoZ Markets – In the 2019 elections, 300 million voters did not vote. It represents a third of the 900 million Indian voters. Some were probably not engaged enough to vote. But the vast majority may not have been able to vote – because they were far from where they were registered as voters.
Election Commission of India Will Use Blockchain Voting Solution
The country has more than 450 million migrants who move for work, education or marriage but do so only temporarily. Most of them do not bother to re-register in a new district.
Indian citizens will soon be able to vote outside their registration city due to the Blockchain Voting Solution. According to the Times of India, on February 13, the Indian Chief Election Commissioner, Sunil Arora, said:
The country hopes to increase voter turnout through a blockchain voting solution.
The commissioner said regulators are working with the Indian Institute of Technology to develop a blockchain voting system that would allow citizens to vote remotely. He also hopes the chain voting system will be in place during his tenure, which ends in April 2021.
He also said that a proposal to link voters’ identity cards with Aadhaar, is pending at the Ministry of Justice. It would be on the list during the Election Commission, EC’s deliberations on electoral reforms with the ministry.
The blockchain used by the system to allow citizens to vote outside of their registration city. It also prevents them from voting more than once.
The Fear of Hacking in Digital Voting
While paper ballots seem old-fashioned to some. Many oppose the idea of digital voting for fear of hacking. Arora said that if machines can “malfunction” like any other electronic device, they cannot be “tampered with”. He also said that if the EC was open to constructive criticism, people should refrain from criticizing for “pleasure”.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s security analysis of Voatz the self-styled first internet voting application used in US federal elections, has resulted in allegations of cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
The CEC admitted that the daily dialogue had become “coarser.” It should be “avoided.” But if the commission had, in the past, and was still going to hold talks with political parties. The talk is to give “more muscles “to the model code, the decision, ultimately, should be voluntary.
Source: https://atozmarkets.com/news/india-is-developing-blockchain-based-voting-solution/
