• Sphere [he/him, they/them]
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    edit-2
    3 years ago

    I'm afraid voting is not a good application for Blockchain. For people's votes to be secure, they need to be able to keep their keys safe, and end users are extremely bad at key management (and computer security in general), so some people's keys are inevitably going to be compromised. Given that, you then also need a system for verifying people's identities so that they can get their compromised keys replaced. And since identity is a social construct, that requires humans. So any Blockchain voting system would need to be backed by a ton of real-world infrastructure, and could potentially be so thoroughly compromised (as by e.g. a nasty computer worm) as to ultimately invalidate the results of an entire election.

    All computer security experts recommend paper ballots for maximum election security; electronic voting is not a popular idea in the computer security field.

    Edit: also, it's Blockchain itself that uses so much power (if using proof of work verification), not just the currency application of it

    • Dingdangdog [he/him,comrade/them]
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      edit-2
      3 years ago

      Oh no, I wasn't suggesting voting be done solely by it. I mean it as a way to view a record of your vote after it was done, you'd still need polls.

      As far as I know there's less power consuming proof systems that can be used, but I don't really think any of it is necessary.

      I'm just providing a limited use case of being able to view your data in an otherwise opaque process is a thing it could do, but its not really solving anything, just is a feature that it can provide.

      I'm not arguing for it in the slightest and I agree with you here