Electronic Voting Recording System Based on Blockchain Technology

Abstract

Blockchain has been said to be one of the technologies for the future, and researchers have argued that this technology is going to disrupt many industries in the coming years, and democratic elections are one of the key areas blockchain is going to transform. Several organizations have begun experimenting on blockchain-enabled e-voting platforms, such as Democratic Earth, Horizon State and Follow My Vote. This study seeks to conceptualize a blockchain architecture for the storage of election results that provide trust, transparency, and immutability using distributed ledger technology (DLT). One of the main issues with elections in Ghana and other sub-Saharan African countries is the inaccurate recording of votes from polling stations, constituencies and at the national office. There are instances where votes recorded at the polling station changes at the constituencies either intentionally or accidentally. The study discussed the basic properties of the blockchain, such as distributed ledger, consensus mechanisms and cryptographic hash function, and how it can be used to address the current challenges in vote recording during elections. The study evaluates current blockchain-enabled e-voting systems and designs a blockchain-based vote recording system that provides immutability, trust, and transparency. The proposed design addresses the issues of vote tempering because transactions added to the block are secure with a cryptographic hash function which makes tempering of the votes stored in the blockchain nearly impossible and make it immutable.