Can technology make elections more transparent?

Election Technology

Elections are at the core of democracy, and having had the opportunity to work on an international election project in early 2020, here are some insights into the technological landscape.

Voting technology

Typically each territory has its own laws governing election equipment, and the voting equipment has to be customized to those laws. The equipment can have various functionalities, such as counting ballots, checking ID and biometrical data, issuing voting receipts, etc. In some territories, the customization has to take place on short notice, since the selection of the supplier happens shortly before the election takes place. Therefore, some large vendors of voting equipment essentially consist of teams of engineers with knowledge of voting technology, and production facilities for voting equipment; and each election is a project, in which the modules are assembled and customized to fit the project.

Elections could become virtual events in the future

In the future, as we start to increasingly use our digital persona, elections could become purely virtual events. After all, some territories already encourage digital tax filing, payments, digital signatures etc. - it is not a big step to imagine some territories advocating purely digital elections, possibly in combination with limited in-person voting opportunities.

Digital voting advantages

If it is done properly, digital voting has big advantages: for instance, voters can be given sole access to their (encrypted) voting record on the voting database, thus being able to verify if their vote has been counted.

The voter database can be audited easily: it would contain the information about who voted, while the vote itself is only accessible by the voter for verification purposes.

Blockchain Decentralisation

The Blockchain decentralized nature lends itself as a technology for elections, although various approaches are possible, with or without a blockchain component. Several large corporations, for instance, Microsoft, have developed their own approaches; at the moment the largest impediment to the introduction appears to be not technology, but the will of the political system to go ahead. As a Taiwan-Swiss company, we are particularly interested in the subject of voting and keep abreast of the developments in this field. Contact us here.