International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 05 Issue: 11 | Nov 2018 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072
© 2018, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.211 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 48
A Study on Decentralized E-Voting System Using Blockchain
Technology
Mrs. Harsha V. Patil
1
, Mrs. Kanchan G. Rathi
2
, Mrs. Malati V.Tribhuwan
3
1,2,3
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Computer Science, Dr. D .Y. Patil ACS College, Pimpri , Pune-18,
Maharashtra, India.
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Abstract - Election is a very important event in a modern democracy but large sections of society around the world do not trust
their election system which is major concern for the democracy. Even the world’s largest democracies like India, United States, and
Japan still suffer from a flawed electoral system. Vote rigging, hacking of the EVM (Electronic voting machine), election
manipulation, and polling booth capturing are the major issues in the current voting system [10]. In this paper, we are
investigating the problems in the election voting systems and trying to propose the E-voting model which can resolve these issues.
Also this article aiming to evaluate the application of blockchain as service to implement distributed electronic voting systems. The
section of paper will highlight some of the popular blockchain frameworks that offer blockchain as a service and associated
electronic E-voting system which is based on blockchain that addresses all limitations respectively, it also preserve participant’s
anonymity while still being open to public inspection.
Key Words: Blockchain, Decentralization, Voting scheme, Distributed System, EVM, Anonymity.
1. INTRODUCTION
Blockchain being relatively a new technology, a representative sample of research is presented, spanning over the last ten
years, starting from the early work in this field. Different types of usage of blockchain and other digital ledger techniques, their
challenges, applications, security and privacy issues were investigated. Some countries have already taken the initiative to
improve their voting system by using blockchain technology and decentralized peer to peer network accompanied by a public
ledger. (Nakamoto, et al,2008) [10]. Sierra Leone became the first country in the world to use blockchain Technology to verify
votes in an election in March, 2018. The inability to change or delete information from blocks makes the blockchain the best
technology for voting systems. Blockchain technology is supported by a distributed network consisting of a large number of
interconnected nodes. Each of these nodes have their own copy of the distributed ledger (information) that contains the full
history of all transactions the network has processed. There is no single authority that controls the network. If the majority of
the nodes agree, they accept a transaction. This network allows users to remain anonymous. A basic analysis of the blockchain
technology (including smart contracts) suggests that it is a suitable basis for e-voting and moreover, it could have the potential
to make e-voting more acceptable and reliable [7].
Modern democracies are built up on voting system, whether traditional ballot based or electronic voting (e-voting). In recent
years voter apathy (lack of interest) has been increasing, especially among the younger computer/techno savvy generation. E-
voting is pushed as a potential solution to attract young voters. For a robust e-voting scheme, a number of functional and
security requirements are specified including transparency, accuracy, auditability, system and data integrity, secrecy/privacy,
availability, and distribution of authority.
Existing works explore how blockchain can be used to improve the e-voting schemes or provide some strong guarantees of the
above listed requirements. However, these papers do not discuss the implementation challenges and limitations of the
blockchain (and smart contract) technologies at their current state to fully support a large scale voting scheme. In this paper we
explore both the possibilities of an e-voting scheme, along with the challenges and limitation of the blockchain technology in
the e-voting context.
1.1 TRADITIONAL E-VOTING SYSTEM
Recent major technical challenges regarding e-voting systems include, but not limited to secure digital identity management.
Any potential voter should have been enrolled to the voting system prior to the elections. Their information should be in a
digitally processable format. Besides, their identity information should be kept private in any involving database. Traditional E-
voting system may face following problems:
Anonymous vote-casting: Each vote may or may not contain any choice per candidate, should be anonymous to everyone
including the system administrators, after the vote is submitted through the system.