Blockchain may introduce new problems to voting system: Study

San Francisco, Nov 16 : While current election systems are far from perfect, security risks can persist in Internet- and blockchain-based voting systems, says a study by researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The paper titled “Going from Bad to Worse: From Internet Voting to Blockchain Voting,” comes at a time when news reports of possible foreign interference in elections, of unauthorised voting, of voter disenfranchisement, and of technological failures have called into question the integrity of elections worldwide.
The calls for blockchain-based voting grew stronger after media outlets in the US waited to announce the winner of the presidential poll until the Saturday following the election day.
Internet- and blockchain-based voting would greatly increase the risk of undetectable, nation-scale election failures, said the MIT paper.
According to the researchers, claims that “voting over the Internet” or “voting on the blockchain” would increase election security have been found wanting and “misleading”.
For the study, Institute Professor Ronald Rivest of MIT’s renowned Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and his colleagues analysed prior research on the security risks of online and electronic voting.