Thailand’s Democratic Party Deploys Blockchain Voting System In Party Elections
Blockchain technology could soon take over Thailand’s election process. The country’s Democratic Party became the first political party to use the blockchain system in electing new party leaders. The party leveraged the power of a blockchain powered e-voting system that saw more than 120,000 people cast their votes.
Thailand Blockchain e-voting
The blockchain system provided an alternative to the normal voting system where people cast votes through a Raspberry Pi-based system. While both systems were in use at the November 1-9, 2018 primary elections, the use of a blockchain system marked an important milestone.
In the blockchain, system voters cast their votes using the blockchain-based mobile app. With the app, people only had to submit their photo ID to verify their identity. A decentralized and distributed file system acted as storage facility upon encryption of all verification documents.
The InterPlanetary File System for storage uses a peer-to-peer protocol whereby nodes store hashed files in a network. For the Democratic Party elections, Zcoin blockchain acted as the storage custodian. The blockchain doubled up as an immutable database that the Thai Election commission is to use for auditing.
The Thai Election Commission has also confirmed the use of Shamir’s Secret Sharing Scheme, to keep voting data documents safe. The system works the same way the multi-sig key works to keep private keys safe.
The advantage of using the Shamir Scheme is that multiple custodians must be present for the decryption of any voting data. The Democratic Party leveraged the services of, five custodians for the decryption process. The five included representatives from each candidate as well as an official from the election commission and party’s representative.
Blockchain Voting Systems Taking Over
Thailand is not the first country to leverage the power of blockchain technology in election processes. West Virginia in the U.S has already conducted trials on a blockchain voting system in the federal election for military and other personnel abroad.
Thailand carrying party elections on a blockchain system is a significant achievement. For starters, it underscores the technology’s potential in facilitating such an important process of democracy. The next step is having the technology deployed on large-scale e-voting.
Blockchain voting could soon become a reality around the world, given the benefits it stands to offer. For starters, it stands to enhance transparency in the electoral process. It should also go a long way in minimizing the costs of conducting elections.