The Election Commission of India (EC) is currently studying the possibility of integrating blockchain technology into India’s election process to enable Indian citizens to vote remotely in a secure manner, according to a report by TheIndianExpress on August 10, 2020.

India may adopt blockchain for digital voting:

In an effort to remove geographical barriers in the election process and enable citizens to vote smoothly from anywhere across the country, the Indian authorities are now considering whether to adopt blockchain technology.

According to sources close to the Election Commission, officials of the Election Commission of India (EC), headed by Commissioner Sushil Chandra, held a meeting on August 10, to discuss how voters can overcome geographical obstacles and cast their votes in a safe and transparent manner.

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Just as in most jurisdictions, voters must cast their ballots from the same geographic area in which they reside and from the center in which they initially registered.

Previously, the process was almost impossible for the voter to participate in voting when the electoral center was far from his place of residence.

Relying on blockchain technology:

To get rid of the problem of the geographical distance of voters from polling stations and other problems such as crowding, especially in the time of Corona, the Election Commission and the Tamil Nadu Electronic Governance Agency (TNeGA) met through a webinar to discuss the possibility of implementing a remote voting system that can support live and addressable voting For scrutiny, transparency, and freedom from friction and congestion.

Umesh Sinha, a commissioner at the Electoral Commission of India, stated:

Today our operation is geo-related, I am sure we can work on blockchain technology.

The big challenge is crafting a safe and reliable system.

This is a huge task, however this task will facilitate the easy participation of voters who are unable to visit the polling station during the elections.

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Notably, Chandra explained that while the development of a remote voting system is absolutely necessary, the government should first critically examine the flaws of the blockchain including scalability issues.

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Vijay Raghavan, the government’s chief scientific advisor, says he firmly believes in the potential of blockchain, however, a blockchain-based remote voting system should first be tried at a grassroots level on a small scale, to assess its efficiency before it is rolled out at the national level.

Blockchain technology is increasingly being explored for remote voting across various jurisdictions in India, however, recent research reports suggest that there is more work to be done before the burgeoning blockchain technology can be used in the complex field of elections.

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