As blockchain technology continues to develop, people in every sector create innovative applications to take advantage of the inherent security, accessibility, and decentralization provided by distributed cryptographic ledgers. Various cryptocurrencies have even been adopted as protected legal tender in several countries, such as the recent acceptance of Bitcoin in El Salvador, further pushing decentralized ledger technologies into global finance.
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are another excellent example of the versatile integration of blockchain technology into our economies and cultures. The world-renowned art auction house at Christie’s is selling an NFT for $69 million just this year. This kind of versatile integration is made possible by the incredible flexibility of tokenization systems, in which one crypto-token can represent virtually any unit of value imaginable.
Beyond Monetization
Outside of the economic realm, crypto-token technology is also making a huge impact. For example, Farsight, an innovative large-scale voting system that ensures equitable access to free and fair elections that every democracy depends on. Farsight’s platform leverages the decentralized infrastructure of existing blockchain networks to adopt crypto-tokens as representative of secure electronic ballots – removing the ability of unethical election administrators or malicious outside actors to interfere with a nation’s most sacred right and responsibility: the right to actively participate in the selection and administration of their own governments.
Is it hyperbolic to say this kind of application of blockchain capabilities could quite literally change the world as we know it? That it would ensure freer societies by keeping the right to choose our leaders with the people where it always belonged.
How Farsight Works
Like all systems that integrate blockchain technology, Farsight’s Quantum Voting platform relies on the principle of zero trust ledger architecture to ensure the accuracy and legitimacy of information submitted to the network. This is crucial to maintaining election integrity, as both elected officials and election administrators will always have a personal interest in controlling (or misrepresenting) the results of important elections.
Due to blockchain networks’ inherent zero trust architecture, this kind of unethical disenfranchisement becomes almost impossible to achieve. In addition, by relying on the open-source blockchain technology of the well-established Stellar Development Foundation, Farsight voting systems make the election process completely transparent, allowing all voters the ability to verify results, examine ledger processes, and have faith that election outcomes actually represent what they are supposed to represent – the will of the voters.
On the technical side, Farsight’s platform utilizes Quantum Bit Commitment (QBC) protocols to ensure electronic ballot security and ledger distribution accuracy. To satisfy the incredible need for security that election proceedings require, Farsight takes this one step further, integrating Cheat-Sensitive Quantum Bit Commitment (CSQBC) and Relativistic Quantum Bit Commitment (RQBC) protocols to further ensure the integrity of their systems – even from possible attack by other quantum computing mechanisms.
Practical Implementation
The biggest hurdle to the Farsight voting system is the lack of widespread public understanding of crypto-tokenization and blockchain technologies. Despite this, public trust in Farsight’s system can be generated by demonstrating the practical implementation of the platform and showcasing the functional ability of the system to satisfy the prerequisite conditions for election integrity:
- Anonymity – Voters participating in an election must know that no matter what, their individual ballot is safe from prying eyes that might want to examine the content of their votes. By relying on quantum secure connections and blind signature techniques, voter anonymity is ensured by Farsight’s platform.
- Binding Votes – Once a ballot is cast, no voter should be able to alter it in any way. Blockchain networks are already equipped to satisfy this requirement by design through the distributed ledger system.
- Non-Reusable Ballots – A ballot token on a quantum blockchain is only usable once, preventing election fraud or inaccuracy caused by improper tally reconciliation.
- Vote Verifiability – In a fair election, every voter must have the ability to independently confirm that their vote has been counted. Due to the inherent transparency of Stellar blockchain design, Farsight allows any voter to verify that their ballot has been successfully transferred into the secure blockchain storage system.
- Voter Eligibility – In an election, the only acceptable votes are those that come from authorized eligible voters. Farsight integrates National Digital Identity providers (IdPs) and Token Distribution Servers (TDS) to not only ensure that only eligible voters can participate in an election, but to simultaneously guarantee voter privacy by separating authentication and authorization processes.
- Fairness – The fairness of elections depends on restricting access to vote tallies before the ballot casting window has been completed. Partial counts may misrepresent election proceedings, unduly influence voters, and compromise the overall integrity of the process. Farsight’s implementation of QBC protocols makes sure this cannot happen, as not even miners would be able to determine the existence of even a single masked ballot before the tallying phase.
- Independent Tally – Trust in election outcomes relies on the ability of interested users to independently audit reported results. Due to the transparent nature of blockchain technology, any voter can examine the data contributing to the final tallies. This means that each individual voter has the power to verify that the reported results of an election genuinely represent the actual votes.
Freedom to Rule Ourselves
The implications of blockchain voting technology are far-reaching, expanding equitable access to the right of self-governance that all people should enjoy without undue restriction. By decentralizing the election process through the blockchain network, Farsight can empower those disenfranchised by corrupt election establishments, corporate lobbyists, foreign election interference, and organized voter suppression tactics.
Imagine it – a government that is actually of the people and by the people, guaranteed to be legitimately elected by a truly free, fair, and transparent election process. Would the world ever be the same?