Could Blockchain Technology Save Democracy?

There’s no denying that the state of political affairs across the globe is growing increasingly more worrisome. Just turn on the television or scroll through Twitter and it might seem as though people everywhere are protesting, indicative of a growing divide between individuals and their governments. 

What exactly does this mean? Are governments growing more totalitarian or are individuals simply becoming more informed? Or does it mean something else entirely? There isn’t one single answer, but one thing is clear – something needs to change. And in today’s technologically-charged world, aren’t there any cutting edge tools we could use to enact real change? Enter blockchain technology.

Blockchain and Democracy

Blockchain technology is an immutable, decentralized and distributed public ledger. This means that any information on the blockchain relies on its validation by many individuals. Each block can store information that absolutely cannot be tampered with. And best of all, there is not one single central authority governing the blockchain – it is as democratic as it gets. For these reasons, one of the strongest use cases for blockchain is for governance and voting.

At the present moment, the democratic model allows a country’s citizens to vote their government officials into power. For example, citizens in the US have the ability to participate in local elections as well as general elections. But many of them do not participate at the local level, which are arguably more vital than the vote for who becomes president. One reason for the lack of participation is because today’s modern individual is busy and voting is done in person. And the fact that not everyone participates in these elections carries major implications for what happens in a country. 

So why, in a world where almost everything that can be, is becoming digitized, is voting still paper-based and done in-person? The reason might be because, historically, a secure way to vote digitally did not exist. A voting system could easily be hacked, deeming this alternative too risky. But what is one system that has never been hacked? Bitcoin. Why? Because Bitcoin was built with blockchain technology. Blockchain technology resolves the security issue for digital voting.

Not only will blockchain technology enable secure voting, it will make voting as simple as a click of a button. Not only will it result in extreme convenience and time-savings, it will equate to massive cost-savings for governments. Individuals will become active participants in a democracy and able to audit results to trust that their vote counts. The public ledger will allow anyone to view the anonymous votes.

So before frustrated individuals experience a complete loss in faith in governments, blockchain technology needs to be given a fair chance. We’re quickly propelling into the future – isn’t it time we behave more like it?