Can blockchain really prevent election fraud!?

"Election" That is one of the processes in the democratic system that gives the people the opportunity to participate in driving the country by going to the booth to elect representatives to the House of Representatives. This makes the election something that Thai people wait for and expect to see the country in a better way. However, in the past few days we have seen scandals and problems arising from the election. in advance, causing a hunt for names of names to be withdrawn from the Election Commission.

This type of dissatisfaction event includes actual work mistakes. It didn't happen for the first time. But it has been repeated many times and in each case it has different subtleties. giving rise to the idea thatIf we use blockchain technology (Will Blockchain be used to manage and manage the election system? Will it solve the problem?!?

Mr. Peerapat Hankongkaew, Chief Investment Officer (CIO), CryptoMind Advisory Company Limited, Thailand's first digital asset advisor under the supervision of the SEC Office. Give your opinion on the application of blockchain technology. Including interesting points as follows:

Election system Will Blockchain solve the problem?

Blockchain technology is a database system that cannot be altered and changed, making it seem like a technology suitable for elections. However, No country in the world conducts public elections using Blockchain or even digital systems in general.

The important reason is that there are many elements in the election process. Using a digital system or even Blockchain can only partially solve the problem, such as solving software problems. But in the election process, there are also other elements.

Hacking equipment used for voting

The use of Blockchain in elections has theoretically been received quite well, leading to its use in closed elections. In 2018, there was an example case of the use of Public Blockchain in elections. Election of the Democratic Party using Zcoin's Public Blockchain by embedding data into IPFS and embedded with Hash.

But the main issue that is talked about the most is the risk of hardware. Cybersecurity And all types of electronic devices, including software, are things that can be hacked, especially if they are connected to the internet or, to put it simply, the system may not have a problem, but the information sent to the system may be forged.

At DEF CON 2018, which is one of the largest hacker conferences, the topic of Voting Machine Village was organized, which is an event that will allow hackers to test the security of various electronic systems used in every part of voting, whether It's a registration system. voting system which at the end The speaker also spoke about the results of the vote.

“After today's event, we found that every type of equipment in Voting Village has been successfully hacked. with different results Some of the attendees were not experts and did not have any specialized equipment. Still able to hack the system.”  

The scary thing is how do we know if data has been falsified? And the scariest thing about centralized data storage is if the device is hacked and time passes when we come to check the system. There may be no information left on what has been forged. And if one part is hacked, how do you know if the rest is still safe?

After this work, bugs were reported to the manufacturers of those devices. Most of which are manufacturers from China. Imagine that a voting tool is made up of many electronic components. If a hacker aims to hack one device and succeeds, the entire toolkit has been compromised.

However, in 2020 it was reported that a prototype voting device backed by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) survived a hack attempt at Devcon 2020, which may be a good sign. We may soon see digital elections, whether it's on the Blockchain or not.

So thenElections with technology Blockchain is not impossible, but other elements are still at risk, especially in the matter of hardware used in elections.Including other matters such as the opportunity to buy voting rights. Although an election system that can be verified by the people is an advantage But if you look back, it means that those who want to buy the right to sell votes can do it as well. Because there is information that indicates the ownership of the voice.