Why is Horizon State based on a blockchain?
Is it possible to make the world better by using a blockchain and other revolutionary technologies? I believe that it will be so. And the more people learn about these opportunities, the sooner we can use them together.
In simple terms, a blockchain is a distributed database. For simplicity, let's take, for example, a book. This is our database. To make it distributed, we will divide it into separate sheets and distribute it to different people. The distributed database was obtained. Next, we say that everyone should make copies of their sheets and also give out to different people. In the end, we get a huge distributed decentralized database - to make changes to which is impossible, since it isn’t known who has and where all the sheets. It is thanks to this particular feature - decentralization, the application of a distributed database for conducting elections of any level is more than relevant and justified.
The principles of democracy can't work fully without trust in the purity of the voting process. It is here that the logic of the whole process of democratic elections is getting weaker and weaker from year to year.
April 2016 Philippines
On the Internet was a complete database of voters: 55 million passports and unique fingerprints. Hackers carried out the action "We are for fair elections" on the eve of the May 9 elections in the Philippines, leaving an anonymous request to strengthen the protection of computers in the counting of votes.
April 2016 Turkey
One of the largest pre-election information leaks: 50 million addresses and personal data of Turkish citizens, including the Prime Minister and the President of the country. In the general access was information about almost every citizen of Turkey: there are 77.6 million of them in the country.
June 2017 Russia
The 2016 election in the US: there are still rumors that the hackers from Russia provided the victory to Donald Trump. In an interview with the American television channel NBC, Vladimir Putin said that databases are available to hackers around the world - from Asia to Australia, and it is possible that the organizers and performers of the action live in America. At the same time, neither side can firmly say whether the hacker attack in general affected the results of the elections and from where it was conducted.
So, the electoral system isn’t immune from attacks, and the results of any election can be questioned. Imagine a world in which no information can be trustworthy, because all the data can be manipulated. Imagine millions of people who don’t recognize any rules, laws and restrictions simply because no one can understand which of the rules are genuine.
In this dystopia everyone will be in the role of the hero of the old riddle about the city of liars and the city of honest people, not knowing who to believe. In the global information environment, hacker attacks will become increasingly coordinated. The main problem is that the effectiveness of digital security needs continuous support and improvement. A blockchain as a technology that can protect itself from any manipulation, looks like the best solution to the problem voiced. We just know the truth and don’t worry about trust. A blockchain is just such a technology.
The inevitability of the transition to electronic voting is noted in the European Parliament. In October 2016, Phillip Nicholas Boucher presented his draft document on the use of blockchain-technology in elections. Transparency, guaranteed by such a system, will significantly improve efficiency and honesty in the electoral process, the parliamentarian believes.
"There should be no question as to whether a blockchain is necessary for elections. There should be only one question: how to integrate a block into the existing electoral system and how this process will affect the development of democracy",the report says.
This will make absolute transparency, since the voice of any citizen immediately hitting a blockchain will be impossible to remove, replace, change. Pros, which carries a blockchain, can significantly affect how democratic procedures will be implemented in the future. The technology makes it possible to conduct elections in an open manner and record the voting results of each citizen in a blockchain , and then certify with a digital signature.
Therefore, if elections are organized according to the principle of functioning of a сrypto-currency, the results will be known about a minute after the end of voting. However, the main advantage of the blockage could be the complete disappearance of distortions in the counting of votes.
In world practice, there are already examples of the use of blockchain-technology in the election process, for example, in Denmark the technology of the distributed registry was used as early as in 2014 when internal voting was held at the annual meeting of party members in Vidovre, a suburb of Copenhagen.
In the US a blockchain used candidates for inner-party positions in Texas. Also, the technology was used by the Republican Party of Utah in the voting for candidates in the primaries stage. All these cases of using a blockchain were successful, and it isn’t known about any problems that the politicians faced.
Too transparent elections.
One of the main tasks that will need to be solved when implementing the technology is anonymity. Almost everywhere in the world, voting in elections and referendums is secret, as the law says. After all, now a person who threw a ballot into the ballot box is sure that if he doesn’t want it, then no one will know who he voted for. And in the case of electronic elections, his voice will be preserved in a blockchain and will remain there forever. On the other hand, it would be possible to anonymize the vote before writing to a blockchain, but in this place there are so many vulnerabilities that attackers can use and distort the real choice of voters.
How will this work?
The main goal of Horizon State is to provide citizens of the state with an opportunity to receive information at any time with reliable accuracy about what is happening at different levels of state power. And to government officials, the completeness, authenticity and accuracy of all information will make it possible to successfully make strategically important decisions at different levels and in different spheres of state life.
How will voting work in a blockchain? Imagine that the election organizers will create digital "wallets" for each candidate or option of voting and each voter will have one electronic token HST that he can give for one of the candidates. Citizens vote anonymously through their virtual avatar, sending their HST to the purse of their chosen candidate. A blockchain fixes and confirms the transaction. The winner is determined by the number of HST-tokens in the wallet.
Voting will be available from any platform: from a personal smartphone to special city terminals. To identify users, system designers plan to enter maps, electronic keys or fingerprints - depending on what will be more convenient for users. The authors of the project hope that they will help start a new period in the country's democracy, as well as create reliable protection from external influences on the election results. If people get a guarantee of fair elections in this way, the state also doesn’t remain in the loser: citizens don’t "vote with their feet," the opposition doesn’t begin witch-hunts after every election, the risk of political catastrophes and split in the society sharply decreases.
So, Horizon State is the decision that will make the electoral system reliable, and the results of any election can’t be questioned. Obviously, a blockchain in the electoral process isn’t only useful - it is necessary:
• Falsification of results and manipulation of the votes of voters are excluded.
• Automatic counting of votes makes the entire voting process not only transparent, but also fast.
• There are no vulnerabilities in the decentralized system, which can be used by hackers.
Taken from HST BTT Thread
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