Benefits of Blockchain-based Voting Systems

Blockchain can provide a decentralized voting system which can be useful to prevent a central point of failure and also can prevent hacking or any other malicious activities. There are several potential benefits over traditional voting methods, including increased transparency, immutability, and security.

By using a blockchain platform, the voting process can be made fully transparent and accessible to anyone with internet access. This allows for real-time monitoring and auditing of the voting process, making it more difficult for fraud or manipulation to occur.

Once a vote is recorded on a blockchain, it is immutable and cannot be altered, deleted or tampered with, ensuring the integrity of the vote.

Blockchain-based voting systems can use cryptographic methods to ensure that only authorized voters can participate and that their votes are recorded accurately. This can help to prevent voter fraud and increase the overall security of the voting process.

Overall, blockchain-based voting systems have the potential to improve the transparency, security, and reliability of the voting process.

How does voting on a blockchain work?

Blockchain-based voting systems typically involve the use of smart contracts that self-execute when certain conditions are met.

Following is an example of how a voting process on the XDC Network could work:

1. Proposal requiring a vote. Team members from a blockchain project put forth a proposal that needs to be voted on by a designated group of individuals such as community members.

2. Voter registration. While not required, voter registration may be done before voting begins. This can be done by creating a unique voter identity on the blockchain, which  may be verified through means such as a government-issued ID.  Another way this may be done is through the issuance of a governance token to a digital wallet address, where issuance of that token is based on participation in the ecosystem (staking).  That governance token is then used to cast votes.

3. Setting up the smart contract. Once voter registration is complete, a smart contract is written and deployed to the network. This smart contract defines the rules and parameters of the voting process, such as the proposal details or candidates, the voting period, and the number of votes each voter is allowed.

4. Casting a vote. During the voting period, authorized voters can cast their votes by interacting with the smart contract through a user interface. This typically involves sending a transaction to the blockchain, which includes the voter's unique identity and the candidate they are voting for.

5. Counting the votes. During the vote or after the voting period has ended, the smart contract automatically counts the votes and determines the results. Since the records on the blockchain are immutable, the vote count is final and cannot be altered.

6. Transparency. The entire process is transparent, which allows for real-time monitoring and auditing of the voting process, making it more difficult for fraud or manipulation to occur.

XDC Community Voting dApp

The XDC Community is working to implement an on-chain voting platform that will be used for input on a variety of XDC Network improvements, enhancements, and general community issues. A voting dApp is currently in development, and the first version of it will be used as the initial platform to vote on new features for this dApp. 

One of the community members has proposed and is developing the voting dApp. Part of their proposal includes a “vote toll” which charges a voter a certain amount of XDC tokens to cast their vote. Using tokens to vote is often used to reduce frivolous voting. 

The plan is for the proposal creator to have the ability to set the "vote toll" at between 0 and 1,000,000 XDC. Obviously a higher "vote toll" discourages bad actors from gaming the system. The "vote toll" XDC will go to a wallet where it will accumulate and be used to fund future work on the voting dApp. The intent is for this to be transparent and act as a way to make the voting dApp self-sustainable.

The XDC Community is providing feedback on the Voting dApp, and there has been one round of voting to date. A preview and explanation of the dApp can be seen here.

The voting dApp will be open source under an MIT license. Therefore, it can be forked and used by anyone for anything.