New MIT Paper Roundly Rejects Blockchain Voting as Solution to Election Woes

A new report from MIT, however, strongly argues against the idea of blockchain-based e-voting, largely on the basis that it will increase cybersecurity vulnerabilities that already exist, it fails meet the unique needs of voting in political elections and it adds more issues than it fixes. Why online voting isn’t like digital banking The report recognizes the desire for people to want the voting process to be faster and more efficient, but pushes back on the idea that just because we do things like shop or bank online, that means elections should be done in the same way.

“A voter using a phone to vote depends not only on the phone vendor, but on the hardware companies providing drivers for the device, the baseband processor, the authors of third-party code in the voting software, the manufacturer of the physical device, and the network or any other systems that the device relies upon to cast the vote.” Blockchain has lots of potential, just not for actual voting The report notes that they aren’t addressing voting within a blockchain, such as EOS holders voting for validators in consensus networks, or Augur users using REP to vote on contract outcomes.

Timeline of Augur, Eos