Topic: Can you see the blockchain being used to register votes in general elections? - page 3. (Read 9414 times)

This has got me thinking. What if the US constitution + bill of rights was written/created like blockchain technology? What would it look like?

The US constitution is supposed to be a contract. As we are all learning the blockchain can be leveraged as a contract. So if the US constitution was setup like a blockchain protocol then wouldn't new laws have to automatically follow the rules outlined by the protocol?

I'm not too positive that the US gov is all that broken. There is an excellent framework as outlined by Ron Paul however those rules rarely get followed and politicians make bogus laws that contradict the original contract, IE the US constitution. If people just followed the original protocol rules the US wouldn't be such a damn bully on the world stage. Same with banking. We DONT need new rules to outlaw wallstreet greed, just enforce the rules we have.

What I'm talking about is a possible replacement for the current voting machines. There is no need for a coin to have value. There is no speculation. Who cares about energy costs any more then the cost to light the rooms that you do the voting in. If votecoin technology was used in the poll booth the blockchain would be a short lived entity. You get 1 coin which equals one vote. You spend it in the wallet of the person you wish to succeed. The voting can be scalable to multiple precincts all of which connect to known registered nodes. Anyone can see the number of votes per precinct in real time and it can still be done anonymously; or atleast as anonymous as voting with a ballet. I just don't buy it that you can't do this less anonymous then the current system.

Also I see no real difference between running a votecoin as a proof of stake with premine or proof of work.

No.


I started to reply here about using the blockchain for useful, non-government "voting" type things. But split it off, here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/new-non-coin-coins-that-would-be-useful-without-being-currency-518753

^ this = "who will streamline the invisible chains that hold us back?"

^ This.

Bitcoin (and all the other little kittens of the blockchain) will "vote" the government out of existence by reducing and then eliminating the "need" for it.

Regardless, it will be a process, not an event.  I even predict that at least one of the two major candidates in the 2016 presidential US elections will accept Bitcoin for campaign donations.

That is SO square!


MWD

Bitcoin already is the best system of voting in existence.

Voting with money is natural, organic, and harmoniously aligned with "the free market". Voting with money IS THE INVISIBLE HAND!!!


Why would you want to ever allow me to have a say in your affairs in any other way?!?! Or at least in any way other than at the most local level??

Every money you spend is a vote. It is your most important vote.

Political voting is fraudulent, harmful, and always involves coercion by the majority.

Fuck that!


That being said sure I can imagine a blockchain based voting system. However I don't imagine it to be used in the political realm.
Rather I see it as  way to maintain a ledger of shareholder votes for use within a corporation. The key here being voluntary voting rather than coercion based voting.

There could be merit to this idea, BUT a major stumbling block is who is going to do the mining? Miners need to be paid for their hardware and electricity bills, so the coin needs to have value. Where will it get the value from. Speculation? If not then the voting coin needs to become a mainstream coin.

Unless you expect people to charitably mine a coin that isn't worth anything in the name of democracy. Or maybe the government could do all the mining. 

^ This person gets it.
+9.

Direct Democracy would lead to very quick economic collapse. If people could suggest any bill, and vote on any bill, people who don't want to work would vote successfully to tax people who work 100% of their income. Everyone would quit their job. And the only jobs left would be cops to enforce the taxation. And if no one HAD to work, the only people willing to be cops would be ultra-violent goons who work as cops because they get a kick out of hurtting people. (Hmmmm....I think a lot of them already do that. But not ALL of them.)

Ever seen the movie Idiocracy? Yup. It would be a lot like that. Though it's headed that way anyway under the current system. But Idiocracy takes place 500 years from now, which seems about right. Direct Democracy would get us there in 20 years.

Electronic Voting, where: you want to keep votes secret, but prevent cheating; is a very hard problem. That page quotes none other than Bruce Schneier: "a secure Internet voting system is theoretically possible, but it would be the first secure networked application ever created in the history of computers."

Bitcoin+CoinJoin gets tantalizingly close. But to be honest, I don't completely understand how Gmaxwell's proposed mitigations would work.

Secure e-voting also has the issue of voter intimidation. If a voter can prove how they voted, somebody can pay or threaten them based on how they vote.

If you are interested direct democracy, there is liquid feedback, but it is still centralized as far as I know.

lol. I think you'd dig my radio show.


Ron Paul was the last guy since Kennedy who really had a good heart, and the GOP shut him out. The Democrats did the same thing to Dennis Kucinich, who is sort of like the Democrat's Ron Paul. The Democrats also basically made Dennis retire from politics.

Speaking of Croatian-Americans (Kucinich), we interviewed Krist Novoselic from Nirvana on our radio show. The first hour was all about rock 'n' roll, and it was great! The second hour was all him trying to tell us how to "fix democracy" and it got very silly very fast.

That guy is passionate about polishing the brass on the sinking ship of the state. He even wrote a book on fixing democracy and voting. He's also a millionaire. If anyone really is going to try to do this silly crap of "fixing" voting with the blockchain, you should get that guy on your side. He'd probably love it.

Here's the whole interview:
Krist Novoselic Talks About Nirvana, Flipper, And His Ideas On Changing Democracy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJKIul48mK8

When voting for "the lesser of two evils" (which is part of what got Obama elected), people who love Bitcoin should remember that Obama's second in line, Joe Biden, tried to outlaw encryption in 1991.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Joe_Biden#Internet_privacy_and_file_sharing

 If he'd succeeded, Bitcoin never would have gotten off the ground. Biden is also pro-SOPA, anti-file sharing, pro-FBI, and anti-freedom. Obama is all too, but hides it better. And Obama WAS the lesser of two evils in that race. Voting for the lesser of two evils (which is all you're going to be offered, even if you eliminate voter machine fraud) is like saying "would you rather get kicked in the balls, or punched in the face? You HAVE to pick one or the other!"

Also, expand on your idea please.

You aren't actually serious about this idea or are you?
There is almost nothing in common between the blockchain and a government.

I love it. Please expand on your idea.

You should put together a white paper to start the discussion.

I view the votecoin as a short lived blockchain. With registered nodes. 1 genesis block per election. Maybe even a proof of stake. Coins handed out per id in the same manner as the old system

How about taking it a step further and use the block chain to make a autonomous government.     The public ledger can be used for direct democracy; all citizens get to vote on legislation!

That I agree with fellow slave. This is their system after all. They own every dollar bill. It's theirs you are borrowing it. They own the roads, the land, they get a piece of every transaction under threat of gun (mafia ****cough****). They own the legal system and prisons. They manufacture the bulk of the food. They provide us with their medicine. They feed us their thoughts. And like theater we pretend we get a say and vote in the election theater.

So EVEN if we get a votecoin it still would go up against the fucking electoral collage. WTF?? It's their system.

Now on a more local level where the electoral college can go fuck themselves, vote coin might work.

I like your user name. I've described myself as "The Johnny Appleseed of Namecoin."

This is my project: MeowBit, View censorship-resistant Dot-Bit (Namecoin domains) on ANY Browser. NOT a plug-in: http://meowbit.com/

We also did something this week that's never been done with a blockchain:
http://meowbit.com/meowbit-now-with-update-alerts-over-the-blockchain-a-new-feature-for-all-blockchains/

MWD

He was the last moderately "good" one too, and someone (probably in the government) "voted" against it by murdering him.

You can't "fix" government. Government won't let you.

MWD