The complexity of contemporary elections requires reconsideration of the way identity issues are controlled and defended. With concerns around voter fraud, transparency, and the integrity of election results, a transformative solution has emerged: blockchain technology.
Blockchain has the feature of decentralised identity, which has recently attracted a lot of attention because of its possibility of verifying the identity of a political candidate in a way that can be trusted to be fair.
This article discusses how blockchain can transform elections by using decentralised identity management to verify persons intending to stand for election.
Candidate Verification as a Difficulty in Elections
One of the major issues with traditional elections is identifying the electorate and, on its part, authenticating a political candidate as the person he or she is claimed to be. In this regard, identity verification is conducted via formal databases or identification registers of certain political parties, as well as via identification cards, voters’ IDs, etc.
Nonetheless, centralised systems are always at risk of being frauded, manipulated, or containing errors, especially if data is stored and shared on an open database or across organisations.
Thus, the credibility of election candidates is of the essence because such candidates can substantially affect people’s opinions. Voter confidence in the election can easily be compromised by insecurities concerning the candidate or impersonation fraud.
A big problem for modern democracies is that independent third parties must ensure that only certain people are allowed to vote for positions, while at the same time, candidates cannot have their identities stolen by others.
The problem is solved by the blockchain approach that is decentralised and transparent, and its data is non-tamperable. The general idea is that blockchain can decentralise identity management while offering an improved model for authentication, which can be more resistant to fraud attempts.
What is blockchain?
Blockchain is an application that provides a verified digital record of information that is shared and maintained in a public database by many computers (or nodes). Every piece of data is called a ‘block,’ and all the blocks form a chain that is connected to the other blocks. The primary features of blockchain are:
• Decentralisation: In a centralised system, it is a central authority that oversees and commands the system; in blockchain, it’s a network of users who are essential to it. This decentralised characteristic increases security because there is no single point of attack and no single place where data can be corrupted.
• Transparency: It is a documented fact that every interaction that occurs in the form of a transaction or a block in the blockchain is open for all to see. It also has the advantage of producing a more transparent audit trail, thus increasing accountability.
• Immutability: In more detail, once a block is added to the concept of blockchain, its content cannot be changed or removed. This gives a permanent and non-alterable record of all activity, and this is what is required for building trust.
All these features put blockchain in good stead to serve good purposes, such as voting systems and identity management solutions. It is about Decentralised Identity Management (DID).
Decentralised Identity Management (DID) is an idea that goes by blockchain and gets rid of the middleman, letting individuals fully control identity in every way.
In the old models of identity management, identity data is owned by some authoritative body in charge or an organization. On the other hand, DID frameworks facilitate users to build and control their own identity using secure digital credentials.
In the context of elections, decentralised identity management can also be applied to confirm the identity of the political candidates. A DID usually contains the DID, public key, and the other associated verifiable assertion or credentials about the identity.
The major advantage of DID in political candidate authentication is that the information being passed cannot be altered in any way and that it can be passed while preserving the anonymity of the candidate.
Personal information is not disclosed to the extent that it shares it, which can be used to confirm the identity and qualifications of candidates, while data can be checked on the blockchain without the participation of the candidate himself.
Using blockchain technology for candidate authentication involves several steps that revolve around decentralisation, trust, and transparency:
1. Issuance of Verified Credentials: Political candidates are capable of obtaining authenticated certification from such governmental, party, or related electoral bodies. These credentials can be saved in a decentralised identity wallet so holders of credentials can easily share and verify the candidate without the traditional paper-based methods.
2. Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI): Unique identity does not allow candidates to apply for any job concerning their paper credentials, but it means that such individuals can own and control their identity and, in this way, can authenticate themselves with negligible requirement of third-party verification.
These can be created and endorsed by reputable entities while the ownership, together with the authority to manage the credential, resides with the candidate. This makes it possible that the candidate’s information and identity cannot be altered or spoofed by other unauthorised personnel or another candidate.
3. Verifiable Claims: Blockchain can then contain proof that undeniably confirms that the given candidate is eligible to contest for the presidency position. For example, a claim may affirm that the candidate is a registered voter, meets the age requirement, or satisfies all legal requirements.
These claims are then stored and associated with the candidate’s DID so that the specific claim can be proven without disclosing information.
4. Immutable Records: After the credentials/claims are recorded in the blockchain, they are encrypted, and the information becomes sacrosanct to change.
This eliminates any interference or alteration of information by unauthorised persons in a way that means only the right information gets presented to candidates seeking to be authenticated. The voters can be assured that the information on candidates is relevant and factual.
5. Transparency and Auditing: Due to the transparency that is available in blockchain solutions, election bodies, the political parties, as well as the public, can easily verify the authenticity of the candidates.
The decentralised nature of the ledger makes it possible to obtain an audit trail of when the credentials were issued and verified. This is where blockchain offers the most value to elections because the otherwise disputed candidate record will be easy to verify by all the stakeholders in the election.
Pros of Using Blockchain for Candidate Authentication
1. Security and Privacy: Blockchain increases security, which is achieved by implementing cryptographic methods to safeguard candidates’ information.
This makes information secure to disclose to the public, as all the information is only accessible through the use of a private key. Moreover, decentralised identity management also helps to minimise the situation connected with identity theft and fraud.
2. Transparency and Trust: In my opinion, one of the greatest strengths of blockchain is the level of transparency that it offers. The public ledger enables election bodies, political parties, and the voters to check the eligibility of the political candidates at their convenient time.
Such openness also creates credibility in the electoral process as candidates undergo an open, auditable, and irreversible process of recognition.
3. Efficiency and Cost-Effectiveness: In a traditional self-audition, several resources are involved, like other physical documents, third-party verification services, manual checkups, etc.
More often, blockchain helps in the simplification of the verification process in the sense that many candidates’ identification steps are automated. It eliminates the intercessor, hence enhancing a more efficient and cheaper operation of the system.
4. Reducing Election Fraud: Thus, the decentralised management of identities gives blockchain an advantage over other platforms for operation, even in controlling electoral processes where there are always some heinous individuals who would try to influence the results.
The candidates’ credentials’ integrity is preserved through cryptographic proofs eliminating fraud, impersonation, or other illicit actions.
5. Global Application: While it is possible to deploy blockchain technology across different jurisdictions and electoral systems to create a single, unified, interoperable framework for verifying political candidates, blockchain technology will ultimately benefit from standardisation and a currency upon which people will rely to transact with candidates.
The benefit of this is especially useful if there are different electoral systems in the country or if there is a need for international election monitoring.
Challenges and Considerations
While blockchain holds significant potential for candidate authentication, several challenges and considerations need to be addressed:
1. Legal and Regulatory Framework: To build blockchain-based identity management, a strong legal and regulatory framework is needed to authenticate the system. Governments have to create laws that allow for decentralised identities and set the baseline that decentralised identities should receive in elections.
2. Adoption and Integration: For blockchain-based candidate authentication to work successfully, blockchain must be incorporated into existing electoral systems and processes. That can mean huge investments in election technology infrastructure and training for election officials.
3. Privacy Concerns: Although the improved security of blockchain provides comfort, public blockchains are not entirely private. There are many steps that must be taken to keep sensitive information about candidates private yet allow verifiable claims about their eligibility.
4. Public Perception: Public or political stakeholders who are not familiar with a new technology used (for example, blockchain) in elections may oppose the use of new technologies in elections. To be adopted, blockchain solutions will have to be user-friendly, and educating the public is a must.
5. Scalability: For blockchain systems to scale to handle the extremely large number of potentially published candidate information and credentials during an election cycle, they must also be able to efficiently compute the rollups. That may need a more efficient study of consensus mechanisms and improvements to blockchain infrastructure.
Conclusion
The challenge of political candidate verification in elections provides a promising solution using blockchain technology.
Through decentralised identity management, blockchain offers an unprecedented, secure, transparent, and efficient way to verify the identities and qualifications of candidates. This innovation can help increase the integrity of electoral processes, fight fraud, and increase faith in democratic rule.
Challenges of this approach are legal frameworks, privacy concerns, and public perception, yet the benefits of using blockchain to authenticate the candidates are clear.
Many of the world are already embracing digital solutions, and we believe that blockchain can play an alternative role in ensuring political candidates are being verified in elections and are more transparent, fair, and trustworthy than was the case before.
Blockchain technology may make elections faster, more secure, more efficient, and more democratic, not only in the future but in fact. As blockchain can ensure political candidates are qualified and verified by decentralised identity management, elections can progress to being as transparent and trustable as possible.