EU Parliament Asks “What If?” for Bitcoin Blockchain-Based Elections

Calling electronic voting ‘inevitable,’ a new paper by Philip Bucher for the European Parliament speculates on the possibility of Bitcoin’s revolutionary blockchain technology to bring transparency, efficiency, and greater fairness to elections in its various member democracies.
The paper first notes that because electronic voting is in its infancy, there are still many unknowns, but then jumps straight to the point:
Now we have a further choice; to continue trusting central authorities to manage elections or to use blockchain technology to distribute an open voting record among citizens.
However:
The debate is whether blockchain will represent a transformative or merely incremental development, and what its implications could be for the future of democracy.
The paper [PDF] notes that there are two potential approaches to utilizing the blockchain in an electoral sense. The first would be for governments themselves to establish a blockchain among citizens for the recording of votes. The author shows a clear understanding of the value of such an implementation: universal checks and balances could potentially eliminate virtually all fraud.

This post was published at Crypto Coins News on 04/10/2016.