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Elections form the cornerstone of representative governance in democratic systems. yet the validity of votes is increasingly difficult to establish and the legitimacy of candidates even more so, Blockchain technology is the most trending and pioneer technology to address the concern of voting fraud, and it is suitable for the use case.
Blockchain is first and foremost a decentralized ledger for the cryptocurrency Bitcoin but it possesses significant potential for use in other applications as well. It is increasingly evident about its potential to improve electoral integrity, in no small part to the fight against fake candidates.
Through this article, we aim to discover how the most important application of blockchain technology lies in electoral integrity offerings, such as the fake candidates issue.
What are fake candidates?
A fake candidate is somebody or something that’s on the ballot in an election, the intention of which is fraudulent. Maybe it includes people who are not qualified for the position and pretend to be real people or people who intentionally put fake candidates in the position to affect the results.
Fake candidates can manifest in several forms:
1. Impersonation: People pretending to be real candidates to get votes and confuse voters.
2. Fake Party Members: Non-existent candidates, or ‘paper candidates’, appear on the list to split the opposition’s vote or as unfairly advantaged.
3. Ghost Candidates: These are vote splitters; they are people who might never even want to campaign, but get put on the ballot just to impact the race in their favor.
4. Manipulation of Voter Choices: During sensitive or critical elections, malicious actors can result in the insertion of fake candidates, aimed at degrading voters’ confidence, of course.
The problem of fake candidates undermines the very heart of democratic elections, including confusion, disenfranchisement of voters, and voter fraud.
In some other cases, these individuals are used by political parties as strategic tools to reshape the vote and therefore determine who will win or lose an unfair election.
To address this problem a technological solution must be present so that all candidates appearing on the ballot are legitimated, verified, and accountable.
Blockchain Technology: A Brief Overview
It’s a public digital answer that maintains a permanent, read, and published date record of any transaction that happens on the blockchain.
Blockchain operates as a peer-to-peer network that is a decentralized network removing a central authority for trusting the network where every node has a full copy of the ledger.
As the chain is connected by the previous hash of the node deletion of information is not possible so it’s also called tamper-resistant.
The Effect of Blockchain on Electoral Integrity
The application of Blockchain in the electoral process can reshape the way elections are conducted, especially on fake candidates that fake candidates have used to steal elections. Next, we will look at how blockchain can improve electoral integrity and mitigate fraud by fraudulent candidates.
1. Candidate Verification Translation
As Blockchain is immutable it prevents fraud and duplication of votes or multiple votes cast by users with fake identities.
Blockchain allows you to build a decentralized platform in which the credentials and qualifications of every candidate are stored and verified as soon as possible.
This verification process would include:
• Authentication of Identity: Using blockchain-verified personal information of candidates like citizenship, age, and, as per local laws, eligibility or not, can be stored, and only legitimate people can run for office.
• Qualification Verification: You can also use blockchain to verify academic and professional qualifications, as well as confirm a person’s criminal background and compliance with electoral laws.
• Voter Access: With the blockchain keeping track of the status of candidates, voters can ensure that what information is available about one candidate is reliable and uncontaminated by manipulation.
The utilization of blockchain to ensure the voters’ entries are valid would decrease the probability of the candidates that are not real, or impersonators gaining entries on their ballot.
Blockchain’s transparency enables voters to see authentic information on who is running for office and thus gain more trust in the process.
2. Secure and Decentralized Voter Registration
Electoral integrity cannot be complete without voter registration. The application of Vedas, such as blockchain, may enhance some activities, such as the registration of voters with digital IDs within a system that is safe, secure from fraud, and without central control.
Voter information would be stored on the blockchain in a way that you can’t tamper with or hack into it. Each voter would be given a unique identifier that would not allow for duplication so that only eligible voters choose to vote.
However, with blockchain, electoral authorities will be able to prevent voter registrations for fake people, eliminate the risk of vote duplication, and make sure only citizens with certain requirements are registered to vote.
3. Rejection of Ghost Candidates and Paper Candidates
Most often, fake candidates are ghost candidates that are shown on paper but never campaigned. It is a tactic of partisan splitting the vote. With blockchain candidate registration can use that transparency to prevent only qualified people from determining the ballot.
Better tracking of how candidates are nominated and registered is another benefit of blockchain’s transparency, which makes it harder for political parties or other entities to sneak a fake candidate in to be used for manipulative purposes.
The blockchain system could even go so far as to allow for the automation and enforcement of what constitutes an eligible candidate before they are really added to the ballot.
4. Immutable Election Records
Storing and securing election results on blockchain make the vote counts virtually impossible for anybody to change or manipulate at any point after casting.
After a vote is recorded on a blockchain, those votes are permanent (immutable) and not ever able to be tampered with by election officials or malicious actors.
In addition to preventing vote tally manipulation. This feature guarantees the entire electoral process including candidate eligibility.
In this case of fake candidates, blockchain gives room to track and audit every stage of the electoral process,, most of which can be audited.
But if there are any irregularities in the passage, then they can be traced back to where they came from and may be easier to identify and fix cases of fraudulent activities.
5. Trust and transparency increased
Being decentralized and transparent on blockchain will help voters feel voters more trusted. Today, voters know the system is decentralized with no one having control over the data, which makes it easier to trust in the election’s integrity.
With blockchain, every action, whether the registration of candidates or counting of votes, is transparent.
Transparency eliminates the doubts over the electoral process, and once more voters know that no one can vote against the winning candidate without detection.
6. Real-time monitoring and detection of fraud
Blockchain’s inherent real-time capabilities allow it to play a vital role in detecting fraudulent activities during the election cycle. With the help of smart contracts, any mischief or illegal activities can be reported, for example, duplicate entry, dual registration, etc.
Both election officials and observers from outside continuously monitor the blockchain network in real-time, and any undesired activity is reported to the network.
Conclusion
In particular, blockchain technology has great potential to increase electoral integrity by addressing key challenges of fake candidates.
Blockchain eliminates the chance of fraud, manipulation, and disenfranchisement through the use of transparent, immutable systems of verification of candidates, registration of voters, and tracking of the votes cast by these voters.
Furthermore, blockchain undermines a central point of control and keeps every stage of the electoral process transparent, which boosts trust in the system and secures the democratic process.
