How Bitcoin Could Be Key To Online Voting

blottsie (3618811) writes If implemented correctly, the proliferation of online voting could solve one of the biggest problems in American democracy: low voter turnout. The 2014 midterms, for example, boasted the lowest voter turnout in 72 years. Making it easier to vote by moving the action from a polling station to your pocket could only increase turnout, especially in the primaries. Making online voting work is infinitely harder than it initially seems. However, in the past few years, there's been a renewed effort to solve the conundrum of online voting using a most unexpected tool: Bitcoin. The key idea is this: The main job in online voting is ensuring that the election system records someone’s vote the way they intended. Running votes over the blockchain, which is public, creates an auditable trail linking a person and their vote. Bitcoin-enabled voters don’t have to place their trust in Florida ballot counters trying to discern the difference a hanging chad and a dimpled chad—nor in black box online voting systems from private companies where what’s happening inside is a mystery. The proof is right there on the blockchain.

Comments

Re:Conflating Issues

[Shakrai]

We don't need more low-information voters (89% agree that DHMO should be banned)

Well yeah. If you breathe it you'll DIE! Only a Teabagger would be against Government regulation of a chemical that's so dangerous as to cause DEATH when inhaled. Why do you hate the children? How much did Big DHMO pay you for this astroturfing?

Re:Uninterested people aren't worth it

[tverbeek]

While it's true that low-interest voters tend to be low-information voters, there is also the problem that highly-interested voters are often highly misinformed voters. You have fundamentalist preachers frightening their congregations to vote in favor of bans on same-sex marriage by telling them horror stories about gay couples adopting babies to molest; or dogmatic political organizations telling their members to vote against a candidate because she's going to take their handguns and hunting rifles away, when all she said was that she'd look into restricting sales of assault weapons. Voters who haven't been mainlining bullshit propaganda crafted to "mobilize the base" can actually have a better grasp of the truth.