Photo is AI generated using Craiyon
For today I'd like to solve the problem of cheating in elections. It's a problem we know that directly impacts the lives of every citizen. The thing with rigging of elections is that the leaders, firstly, is not the true chosen one; secondly, the direction of the country for sure is not for progress.
Especially in third world countries, results of elections are always questionable or highly suspect to rigging of results.
Let's limit the the definition of election cheating into tampering the results. I mean there are other ways to cheat like vote buying and using goons to dissuade or persuade people to vote for a particular candidate but still when the person cast their votes, whoever they voted or wrote on the ballot should still be sacrosanct.
For me, election is a marketing game. So whatever tactics they use to make the voters write their name is their business but of course they have to face the consequences if they get caught.
The worst form of cheating still is on tampering the actual results. You can use gold, guns and goons but still the king maker is the one who controls the counting. During counting, the votes of another candidate can be counted for their opponents and that's just sad.
I have witnessed elections where people were pressured by goons yet still when the voting happened they didn't succumbed to pressure and just voted at the risk of their lives because they truly wanted change. So the goon employer doesn't always succeed. Same with vote buying, I've seen candidates shelled out tons of money just to realize they gambled and lost.
So tampering remains the worst cheating that can happen.
If we apply metaphysics, we ask, "How do we ensure we can't tamper the results and truly put in power who the people have voted?"
Before it is an impossible thing to achieve but now with blockchain technology the results can be assured because blockchain technology can't be tampered with unless the cheater have the computing power it needs to override 51% of the blockchain network spread out all over the world.
Currently, although elections are automated, the so called "backdoor" feature is used to alter results with the collusion of the bribed electoral officials. The backdoor is where results are rewritten. This happens because the system is editable still.
Blockchain technology will definitely make it so that electoral officials cannot be bribed because once votes have been casted there is no way of editing it.
Since blockchain are usually needing a native token to be used then it means the election blockchain system that needs to be created will have to have a blockchain tech company partner with a country.
The election blockchain will contain all valid voting citizens and should also be able to add verified voting citizens when new batches of eligible voters come of age.
During elections, each voters will be issued tokens. The system should create specific tokens according to the position the people are voting for like if they are voting for president then a presidential token is going to be used, if voting for a senator then a senatorial token should be used and so on for whatever position like governor or mayor, etc, etc...
Tokens will just be distributed to every registered user. So if there are 60 million voters then 60 million presidential tokens should be used. If senators are the ones for election the senator coins will be issued.
I guess precinct booths are still necessary because that's the only way to assure that nobody was beside a voter to influence a vote at the moment of voting.
The best thing about this is that as soon as the last voter had been cast, the results are available.
I know this takes away the thrill in elections but the upside is just so overwhelming in favor of positive returns for any country.
The other upside to this is that no recount is needed. What's to recount? No one can claim they got cheated on because everyone knows no one can edit the results.
Blockchains tailor-made to voting may not do away with vote buying and pressure from guns-and-goons but guns, goons and gold are pre-election woes. I believe vote buying is only prevalent in local elections but national elections would really require tons and tons of money. Still I believe when the voter is on the moment of casting his/her vote, he/she will always have the choice who to vote even if they accepted money or was pressured to vote for someone. The ultimate choice is still present to anyone once inside a voting booth alone. If you succumbed to pressure, that's sad but maybe you needed the money badly or you don't harm come to your family but can they carry their threats if they don't win?
This falls on the purview of causation in case you are wondering how this is related to metaphysics because we want to have an effect of a clean and honest elections.
The question that remains is would governments invest in it knowing they can't tamper the results? Because once this is done, no politician can ever alter the results and knowing that it may not serve their purposes in the future.
However, if in the future you see some countries are employing blockchain technology for their electoral exercises and some are not then we know that those are not shifting can only have self-serving interests as their main agenda.
So if ever you have a chance to persuade your legislature to pass a law to use blockchain technology, please support it. It's for everyone's benefit.
ps. We had a local election held yesterday in my country so I decided to write something about elections