As the vote on blockchain finds its use in politics and business

redalex (64)in #blockchains • 8 years ago

The results of the presidential elections in the USA for many was a complete surprise. However, the mechanism of voting and its technological side has not undergone revolutionary changes. A collective decision-making concept itself is spread both in politics and in other areas - for example, in finance. Is there a chance for a distributed registry technology affect the voting process?

According to British writer and urbanist Adam Greenfield behind Bitcoin blokchain technology in theory could serve as a basis for the management of everything - from the protest movement to the state, arranged according to the principles of impartial collective democracy.

Is a relatively new and rapidly developing technology of "distributed consensus" is described as something that can bring new forms of collective and conscious human interaction. Thanks to any group of people can get together in a kind of non-hierarchical association, has the ability, comparable to those that have state or corporation.

According to Greenfield, the idea is that government agencies voluntary associations can be substituted on virtually every level of society in the future, given software products. Members of these groups can remain anonymous with respect to each other, if they wish, but their identity will be confirmed, and the authenticity of their will - is installed using the same processes that guarantee the safety of Bitcoin network. This means that every voice is recorded and if necessary is always accessible for subsequent recheck. As in Bitcoin, the substitution of a single vote, without an intruder can not change the whole chain of previous blocks, which contain the encrypted data on the voices.

In theory blokchain may even become a tool for the practical implementation of budgeting with public participation at all scales in the spirit of historical precedent in Brazilian Porto Alegre.

Today blokchain already being used in politics - for internal party elections.

One of the first concepts of voting at blokchain was the initiative of the Danish party Liberal Alliance. In 2014, the party leadership has proposed the use of a distributed registry technology during an internal vote at the annual meeting of party members in Hvidovre, a suburb of Copenhagen. Interest in the technology has been called blokchain autonomy of its work that does not require intervention of an intermediary. According to the statement made at the time a representative of the party, blokchain allows you to "look under the hood" and see what happens in the voting process.

In February this year the Australian bitcoin enthusiasts Max Kay and Nathan Spataro created «Flux Party». The concept proposed by the founders, involves electing six senators who will not take the initiative themselves, but will be able to support or reject the proposals of all who are in the party. «Flux Party» model involves the use of tokens, which you can either apply for the independent vote, or referred to the competent authorized persons. The six elected senators, performs representative functions, will vote in the parliament for certain legislative initiatives in accordance with the distribution of the votes in the party blokchain system.

In March, the US Libertarian Party announced its intention to use technology blokchain the election of candidates for internal party positions in Texas. Thanks to the hardware and software provided by the New York company Blockchain Technologies Corp., representatives of political association could organize registration and vote count, using technology blokchain. At the bottom of each ballot three QR-code have been placed: The first QR-code contained blokchain address, the second was a bulletin ID, and the third - ID voting. After scanning of QR-codes the data on votes in favor of certain candidates were entered in blokchain protecting the results of the fraud. In total 250 delegates participated in the "Texas" vote. Blokchain machine designed Blockchain Technologies Corp., could potentially compete with voting machines used in the United States at this time.

In the US, this is not the first time the use of technology in voting blokchain. In March, the Republican Party of Utah blokchain used during the voting for the candidates at the stage of the primaries. According to Wired edition to vote at blokchain registered 59,000 Republicans from the state of Utah. Technological support for the electoral process provided the British company Smartmatic.

In February in Kiev, a group of volunteers and activists from non-governmental organizations signed a memorandum on the development of blokchain service in order to vote E-vox. The system is intended to ensure the transparency of the voting results at all levels - from local elections until the election of members of parliament. The developer of the system was the company Ambisafe. The main advantages of the service creators say the absence of mediators that influence the outcome of elections. Results of voting recorded in blokchain are open and can be used by public authorities to make strategic decisions. The process of developing E-vox also involves the creation of open source software, the appropriate MIT license. At the core of E-vox technology is blokchain Ethereum. At the end of August this year, the team E-vox announced the upcoming launch of blokchain solutions voting e-Vox: NaRada urban Rade Balta Odessa region.

From the perspective of the popular vote, the aforementioned British writer Greenfield cites a fresh draft: Backfeed and democracy.earth. They are, in his opinion, are the ambitious ideas of the collective power of civil society.

These instruments confirm the legitimacy of the operation using only the calculation, not relying on the authority of any government or institution. These Greenfield solutions provide the ability to organizers as soon as possible to bring people together in a group, giving all parties a clear, safe and responsible decision-making processes. Such techniques allow to put forward proposals to raise questions for discussion in collective equal members, giving them enough time to think before making a question to the vote.

British writer and urbanist Greenfield identifies blokchain Among the advantages of technology in voting:

The possibility for network users to participate in social life directly from your laptop (or smartphone, or a gaming platform). With this approach to this process can join all those who by virtue of their work or the need to care for the child and fulfill family obligations, is too exhausted or simply do not have time to attend a meeting where decisions are made.
Prevention initiatives intercept one of the participants, trying to use the meeting for personal gain.
No need to gather all the stakeholders in a certain place at a certain time to make decisions on everyday issues. Thus, people would be able to get the opportunity to participate in public life, when it suits them, and as it suits them.
The ability to compare the decisions taken by different agencies or jurisdictions, or to compare them with the results of the last local polls. All parts of the social process of self-determination can also be made available to everyone. Each participant can check how your own voice, and to verify the accuracy of accounting the votes of other members.

Blokchain technology is of interest not only in the sphere of politics. In a post dedicated to the use of blokchain in Estonia, we have mentioned the case of successful application of distributed registry technology for voting shareholders at the Estonian stock exchange NASDAQ. The results of the February launch of the pilot confirmed the benefits blokchain, is the inability to change the voting data, as well as being able to see the results remotely from a mobile device or personal computer.

In April this year the Russian National Settlement Depository announced the successful results of the test run of the system blokchain voting e-proxy voting for the bondholders. As a basis for the development of solutions blokchain platform NXT has been used. Has been developed in partnership with DSX Technologies. The results of the company published on GitHub. The prototype uses ISO 20022. Messaging is a cascade of electronic exchange standard - through a chain as the nominal holders of the issuer's securities holders, and in the opposite direction.

transmission organization and counting voting instructions lies with the NSD. Distributed Register e-proxy voting supported simultaneously by all voting members. Register for voting instructions occurs in blockchain.

Developers solutions NSD announced the performance of 80 per second when networking of 10-20 knots. According to the chairman of the NSD Eddie Astanina intended to vote blokchain-design allows up to 100 thousand votes per hour. Participants are asked to launch pilot only 2 types of questions requiring "yes" answer "no", "do not know" or select one answer from the list.

In October this year the company Broadridge Financial blokchain invested 95 million dollars. According to preliminary data, Broadridge plans to use the technology to develop solutions for the organization of voting shareholders. Blokchain ensure transparency and the possibility of remote participation in the corporate election process.

Considering the technology blokchain in voting on the national level, are immediately evident some problems in the implementation of new technologies. Greenfield results statistics, according to which a little over 60% of North Americans have smart devices, but it is not enough to organize a full-fledged network voting.

Universal enthusiasm for universal blokchain technologies also cool and the attack on The DAO, where attacker managed to find vulnerabilities and to bring about $ 53 million. Precedent distributed autonomous organization based Ethereum demonstrated poor reliability blokchain technology.

Blockchain on voting at the state level, not only did not have time to become mainstream, but it is not even finished shape in case none of the world's states. But, as the experience of the US parties, Denmark and Australia, as well as a pilot case of NSD, the vote on blockchain already can be used effectively within a relatively narrow and specialized associations.