Our voting system

[Micha Blair]

I caught the news today and they were talking about problems we are faced with in our voting system. From nobody wanting to staff our voting structure to people not knowing the integrity of our voting system.

I read a few months back that we could use blockchain technology in our voting system and as they were describing the benefits it seemed like a no-brainer.

If we are not doing anything to pursue this we should definitely make the necessary investments to do so as soon as possible because the benefits they claimed we would get would pretty much solve all the problems we are facing. 

I am hoping someone here can take the necessary steps to get this going into play so within a year or two we will be reaping the benefits. Im I being realistic in thinking someone here would have the tools needed to get us to start taking action?

Is this something we are currently looking into and developing? If it's not we should really take a serious look at this possible solution.

Thank you for reading this. I would appreciate any feedback you may have.

[Micha Blair]

I don't know if this is the proper place to post this but this was my only option.

[Robert Mao]

Micha， 

That's a very good point. But I think this might not be a technical problem. 

The technology to solve the problem is already there for a while, other than the blockchain/DLT, the DID (Decentralized Identity) and Verifiable Credential which recently became a W3C recommendation is right for this type of applications. (I wrote a blog if you need a primer about status quo of DID: https://www.arcblock.io/blog/en/post/2022/07/04/independence-day-did) IMHO, many enterprise or government blockchain use cases are actually DID/VC cases, blockchain is optional. 

My two cents, 

Robert

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[Micha Blair]

I don't know if this is even possible but it would be nice to know for sure. From what I read it sounded like it would be totally possible but they didn't talk about any obstacles we would face if trying to incorporate this technology.

[Micha Blair]

Robert,

Wow, you really know your stuff. That is a very informative post. I am not really good when it comes to reading technical stuff (well honestly I am not really good at anything) but it all seems to make sense. That's nice that the blockchain is optional. So who should I talk to in order to get the ball rolling on implementing this technology? Something really should be done because our voting system is faced with problems. It seems you did all the footwork on this and so the credit goes to you if it gets implemented. They used to listen to me, I don't know if they still will or not. Is there anyone here that is able to take action on this or do I need to look for other avenues? Sorry, I didn't write in paragraphs but my thoughts were mostly one-liners. 

Thanks for your quick response.

Michael

[Micha Blair]

I guess what my question is is anything being done about this because I am just looking for something to do if it is not.

[ken sosne]

The technology and verification tools exist but as long as the political leadership can use the issue to divide and hopefully conquer it will not happen. I worked with those tools at the cutting edge and for internal operations it made things work well.

We as citizens need to demand the tools and protections of one person one vote.

I have no idea what the end game is but know when I was in government and working with local election boards people were honorable.

If you want to see what technology and web does look at the Independent Lens PBS Special on TikTok.

Let us all continue to serve and be as honorable as possible.

Sunshine and free press are the best disinfectant for this anti everything and hate

Cheers

Ken Sosne

Retired public servant.

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/us-open-government/e51e8f2e-9884-449c-9ae3-e45742b9bee5n%40googlegroups.com

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[Micha Blair]

I just wanted to leave a final follow up on this. I got word from our insider that our voting system does have the integrity it is designed to have and that goes in line with what I heard of as well so this isn't an idea that needs to be pursued even though it doesn't sound like it would be a bad idea. I don't know what we would do about those people who don't really have a digital identity because they don't really use computers even though that is pretty much a dying breed even among our aging population. Thanks so much for all your time and input.

Michael

[Aslan French]

If you're interested in blockchain voting there was a trial project a few years back called voatz 
https://voatz.com/

You don't need blockchain to do a digital voting system. There are existing projects like Helios which was supported by Lawrence Lessig (of creative commons fame) 

https://vote.heliosvoting.org/

It's not primarily a technical problem. It's a political one. And further made difficult because the American voting system is administered by a patch work of local and state officials.