In an interview with Cointelegraph, Cardano founder and IOHK CEO Charles Hoskinson believes that Cardano-based solutions may make blockchain voting possible in future national elections. He said: “Not only do I believe, we are also building infrastructure for this.”
Hoskinson acknowledged that the Cardano-based election will be gradual and will require extensive experimentation. He believes that it is possible to start with a third party using the Internet for primary elections, and then upgrade to local and state elections. On this basis, he believes that the Cardano network can be used for national elections in some countries, which are still struggling with traditional voting systems:
“I think that within three to five years, we are entirely likely to take back this test and sell it to the Ethiopian government or the Georgian government. They are looking for a new voting system because they are in the census, registration, and new free elections. There are many problems in this regard.”
He also pointed out that IOHK has a complete team in Lancaster, England, which regularly publishes electronic voting research. However, Hoskinson admits that expanding a blockchain-based voting system will be tricky. Creating a platform that fully focuses on privacy and auditability will require a lot of cryptographic expenditures:
“If you just conduct a general election without caring about privacy, then you are just counting the votes, and you can count the votes for a billion people. When you want an election that I can verify, but I can’t prove me to outside parties. Who voted, but at least I know that my votes have been calculated, I want my privacy and make paper votes. Then, when you are in a situation ranging from billions to thousands, you have to split. “
At the same time, the Catalyst project allows Cardano entrepreneurs to promote the project to the community to obtain funding. Catalyst paved the way for the on-chain governance model, which is expected to be implemented when Cardano enters the Voltaire era.
