During the COVID-19 pandemic, the idea of gathering in a confined polling station has been a noteworthy concern, particularly held by individuals more vulnerable to the virus. It is no wonder that postal voting reached a record high at the 2020 presidential election, according to the BBC. But, while postal votes provide a good alternative to in-person voting, they aren’t a perfect solution. Researchers at the London School of Economics note a risk that postal ballots could be “delayed, waylaid or lost en route”. This is a problem that, they argue, could be solved by a move to online voting.
Online voting is already in place at our Students’ Union, where an online system is currently used for the SU Officer elections. However, these are somewhat different to national elections – the former holding less risk in regards to tampering, and the latter having substantially more impact on a national and international level. The gravity of national elections has certainly discouraged transitions to online voting. Despite some countries having tested the idea, and Estonia having successfully implemented it since 2005, fears that the security risks associated with online voting could damage the integrity of elections persist. These risks were laid bare in 2020, when U.S-based voting app Voatz was found by MIT researchers to have vulnerabilities which could allow “adversaries to alter, stop, or expose a user’s vote”.
That being said, there is great virtue to the idea of online voting. COVID-19 has shone a light on an oft-forgotten need to make voting more accessible for those less able to go to a polling station. In doing this, online voting has an obvious place. According to Amelia Powers-Gardner and Chris Walker of TechCrunch, what we need to do now is figure out how, exactly, online voting can be implemented in a way that does not compromise the integrity of elections.
It has been suggested that one possible answer is Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs.
A Non-Fungible-What?
To put it simply, an NFT is a unique digital identifier for a physical, or virtual, object. To elaborate, an example can be derived from the Mona Lisa. You can replicate the Mona Lisa as many times as you’d like, but there can only ever be one ‘the Mona Lisa’. An NFT would work as proof of its authenticity. This is a rather fitting example, due to their recent use as a way to sell digital art. An NFT proves that, while that piece of digital art can be replicated as a file, you have the ‘original’. Andrew R. Chow, writing for TIME Magazine, describes them as being somewhat “like a deed” in this regard.
NFTs are similar to cryptocurrencies in that they exist on a blockchain: a decentralised, chronological form of database. But, unlike cryptocurrencies, they cannot be exchanged at equivalent value. When used to sell digital art, they are given their value similarly to physical assets. For example, through bidding. They are, according to Investopedia, totally “unique and irreplaceable”.
So, how does this relate to voting? Well, hypothetically, an NFT could represent a person, just as they are used to represent virtual assets today. The NFT could function as a proof of voting rights, with which an individual could verify their eligibility to vote, completely online. This is young technology – and this application of it is still very much hypothetical. But, NFTs could provide a level of security which helps us along significantly on our way to online elections.
Likewise, these tokens’ existences on blockchains gives them further value as a tool for online voting. As blockchains are decentralised, they are open to the scrutiny of a group of validators. In the most popular blockchain platforms, this is done using a ‘consensus mechanism’ called proof-of-work. They are also presented in chronological order, meaning new ‘blocks’ of data are always added to the end of the blockchain – to be stored, but rarely ever altered.
When it comes to voting, this is blockchain’s strength: for the blockchain to be modified by a hacker, they would need to control and alter at least 51% of existing copies of the blockchain. Otherwise, their modified version of the blockchain could be marked as illegitimate by the validators. This could be costly and time consuming, providing a reasonable deterrent from election manipulation in the majority of cases. It is worth curbing our enthusiasm slightly, though. Academics from the London School of Economics note that this would not prevent groups of hackers from banding together to manipulate the system.
For now, however, this remains pure speculation. Blockchain and NFTs are still relatively new technologies, and are unlikely to be ready for this purpose. Firstly, it is worth noting that Voatz was based, partly, upon blockchain technology. The flaws found in the app could indicate that the combination of technologies it uses are not yet ready for purpose in national elections.
Secondly, there is no escaping the devastating impact that blockchain has the potential to work on the environment. Bitcoin mining – the process of adding a new block of Bitcoin transactions to the blockchain – uses up as much energy as the island of Ireland in a single year.
To this, some argue that blockchain technology can be made greener. For example, there have been calls towards using ‘proof-of-stake’ consensus mechanisms, as replacement for the energy-inefficient, but widespread, ‘proof-of-work’ mechanisms. Advocates argue that this would require less computing power. But it is likely that, in a world powered predominantly by fossil fuels, the environmental impact of blockchain will be a problem, regardless of whether or not the technology is made greener.
We should perhaps be cautiously optimistic about the potential of NFTs and blockchain technology in voting, as with the future of online voting in general. Online voting could broaden access to the franchise considerably – but there are suggestions that the technology just isn’t ready. Furthermore, the possible environmental impacts of blockchain should be cause for serious consideration before widening its application.
But, with the preconditions of developments in both blockchain technology and green energy production, it might be worth considering how blockchain and NFTs can be applied to provide a secure, transparent, online voting system for all.
