Digital Voting with Blockchain using Interplanetary File System and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance

Abstract

Traditional voting schemes are often overwhelmed by problems such as deception, influence, and incompetence, which can be resolved by applying blockchain technology with transparency, decentralization, and immutability. This study proposes a safe and indisputable digital voting system with blockchain technology to maintain the integrity of the voting procedure. The reliability and privacy of the voting procedure are upheld with distributed ledger technology and cryptographic techniques. The essence of the proposed method is the immutability of the blockchain ledger, which ensures a tamper-proof record of each cast vote, promoting transparency and offering a way of audit for free verification. The proposed method employs cryptographic protocols to protect individual votes while preserving complete transparency and verifiability of the voting procedure. The InterPlanetary Filesystem (IPFS) is applied to ensure data integrity. Moreover, the practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (pBFT) consensus algorithm is utilized to remove glitches in distributed settings. The proposed approach provides a decentralized platform where voters can cast their votes from anywhere without difficulty using an internet connection, eliminating the need for physical ballot papers and polling stations. Using immutable ledger and cryptographic security aspects in blockchain, the reliability of the voting procedure can be protected while maintaining voter anonymity and confidentiality. Finally, it is shown that the proposed scheme outweighs other existing approaches.