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Election integrity was a controversial issue leading up to the 2024 presidential race, but it shouldn’t have been. With the United States presidential election behind us, now is a good time to reflect on the systems that we use to vote across the country so that we minimize any future scepticism about election integrity—whether it’s coming from the right or the left.
According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans saying they are “not at all confident” in the vote being accurately cast and counted in presidential elections has climbed from 6% in 2004 to 19% today. This is largely due to Republicans’ confidence in presidential elections dropping 16 points since 2020, while Democrats’ trust in those same elections has remained high, with around 84% feeling “very/somewhat confident.”
Let’s put the reasons for this disparity between parties to the side for a moment. The fact that 19% of American voters are not at all confident in the way voting is handled during a presidential election is a real problem. Whether it’s people voting multiple times with mail-in ballots, election machines being vulnerable to hackers (see the HBO documentary Kill Chain), dead people voting, or plain-old voter intimidation tactics, there are a number of attack vectors that can be exploited in today’s current system, regardless of party affiliation.
In other parts of the world, like Taiwan, voting takes place on a single day with paper ballots that are counted immediately by hand in public view so that the results can be tabulated in six hours. Meanwhile, in the United States, we’ve gotten used to the idea that states like Georgia or Pennsylvania taking days to tabulate votes is acceptable. We hope that our elections are decisive so that we can move on with our lives, but sometimes, they come down to tens of thousands of votes in key swing states (like in 2020). If Taiwan can consistently figure out who won an election in less than a day, why can’t we?
Blockchain is the solution
Many on the right have called for a return to paper ballots, limited absentee/mail-in voting, and nationwide voter ID. Democrats are largely against this. But what if there was a way to improve election integrity using a less polarizing method—like a blockchain verified with zero-knowledge proofs? What would that even look like in practice?
If you were to deploy a voting contract onchain, the validity of transactions happening on that contract would first need to be agreed upon by everyone participating in validating the blockchain. It wouldn’t just be a group of poll workers and election officials; it would need to be all the validators.
What would this enable? Theoretically, with a verifiable blockchain voting system, you would be able to set it up so that people could vote remotely using a mobile device or PC. In states with voter ID, you could essentially obtain a “proof of personhood” by tying your vote to your identity, which could be verified with something akin to Worldcoin’s biometric iris scan. In states without voter ID, that proof of personhood would still prove that you’re the person you say you are, and you’re actually sitting at your computer at that moment.
With those guardrails established, you could log in to vote, and you would only be allowed to vote once because it’s tied to your specific identity. Anyone could vote from the comfort and safety of their home without the potential intimidation they might face at a polling site. And on the zero-knowledge side, it would be possible to harness ZK proofs to see that a particular individual voted—but not who/what they voted for. Zero-knowledge cryptography makes it possible to prove something is true without revealing the underlying data involved. It could be a key ingredient in developing an airtight, blockchain-based election system.
With a voting system like this, the potential for fraud would be minimized because absentee and mail-in voting would all happen electronically, tied to real people. It would also make it far easier to vote, so it could have a drastic impact on overall turnout. No need to wait in line and take hours away from your workday. Moreover, United States citizens in other countries who would normally be voting absentee could just log into the app and cast their vote remotely.
Democrats tend to push back against voter ID in elections, but a blockchain-verified system like this is arguably much more democratic and accessible to voters in various situations that prevent them from voting in-person. What about people who have kids and don’t have a car, who are limited in their ability to travel? And what about areas where the polling site is far from public transportation?
The California Department of Motor Vehicles digitized and recorded 42 million vehicle titles onchain this year, making it possible to transfer titles in minutes when it took weeks before. Vehicle owners will be able to manage their titles digitally using a verifiable credential and mobile app akin to a crypto wallet. If we can trust blockchain technology to handle our vehicle ownership records, why not our votes?
A way forward
In a near future where zero-knowledge proofs are ubiquitous, and everything is being done onchain, it’s reasonable to want our voting systems to be modernized in this way as well. Even at a glance, it would be a more democratic system that provides access to eligible voters, no matter their current location, health status, family situation, work obligations, or distance from a polling site. Turnout would skyrocket.
Elections and voting systems can be dramatically improved with today’s technology. We can do it in an egalitarian, bipartisan way. Let’s take action to instil more confidence in our elections; the American people deserve nothing less.
