Referendum Poll System: A Blockchain-Based Solution for Direct Democracy

Abstract

The project, “Referendum Poll System,” aims to enforce referendums and enable people to express their opinions directly, re-engaging them with politics and democracy. The current representative democracy fails to provide direct participation of people in the decision-making process. Online voting/polling systems can encourage active participation and prove to be cost-efficient and accessible to both state and voters. However, traditional voting systems pose challenges such as time-consuming processes and physical presence requirements. Vote tampering also poses credibility issues, and the risk of getting hacked or submitting to an authority with administrator access to the system exists. The blockchain technology used in the Referendum Poll System distributes authoritative power and provides data confidentiality, integrity, and voter anonymity. The voters can read and pass judgement on every clause in a policy and approve or reject the policy as a whole or just the clauses. The “policy flaw detection feature” helps identify problematic clauses in policies, and real-time poll results add transparency. Overall, the Referendum Poll System provides an opportunity for direct and secure participation of the public in the decision- making process, and the blockchain technology used in the system addresses several challenges posed by traditional voting systems.