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IIT Madras conducts India’s first blockchain-based elections and plans to expand
Students at IIT Madras conducted India’s first student council elections using blockchain-based software, a feat that has earned a name in the India Book of Records and has the potential to positively disrupt the way we keep the elections.
Initially developed as a CSR initiative with the support of a major Indian technology company and the Department of Science and Technology, the project aimed to address the challenges of COVID-19, particularly in accessing medical records and monitoring health conditions in the regions.
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The software was first used for the 2022 student elections. The team has been constantly working on it to adapt it for general elections at the state and national levels.
The software used was developed by students of the Webops and Blockchain Club (W&BC) of the Center for Innovation (CFI), IIT Madras, the largest student-run ’24/7 innovation lab’ in India. The club has an overall goal of using technology as a catalyst for positive social change.
Because voting technology is the foundation of a democratic system, students wanted to optimize the existing technical infrastructure for voting within the college.
Professor Prabhu RajagopalAdvisor (Innovation and Entrepreneurship), Anirudh Varna4th year BTech student e Vijayaraja R2nd year MS (Entrepreneurship) students, all from IIT Madras, are the co-founders of the in-house startup Plenomewho commercialized this technology.
Both government and private organizations use Plenome software to manage land and health data.
Here is a short clip of how the digital voting experience for the IIT Madras Student Council elections unfolded using this blockchain-based software:
HOW BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY CAN TAMPER-PROOF ELECTIONS
The journey towards India’s first blockchain-based student council elections began with the vision of W&BC students at IIT Madras.
“Blockchain as an election technology came to our mind when we were tinkering to improve electoral systems and make remote voting a reality,” explains Anirudh Varna, speaking to IndiaToday.in.
“We were looking at 3 aspects in particular: how to make elections more transparent, verifiable and secure, to create an electoral infrastructure to possibly vote from anywhere,” he says.
Blockchain technology, renowned for its decentralized and immutable nature, has proven to be a game changer for electoral processes. The most interesting aspect lies in its ability to safeguard the sanctity of elections by making them completely secure and resistant to manipulation.
Unlike traditional methods, blockchain offers a shared but tamper-proof ledger managed by a network of nodes, ensuring trust and accountability in every transaction.
“It facilitates the process of recording transactions and tracking assets in a decentralized computer network,” says Anirudh.
“Blockchain systems run on a huge computer network across a large geographic area and can only be tampered with if most systems attack operations simultaneously, which is virtually impossible for any entity to orchestrate,” he explains.
“In addition to that, transactions recorded on a blockchain network are permanent and therefore cannot be changed by any single party,” he adds.
In addition to top-notch security, this technology can make elections much more convenient. Anirudh says the team has seen a significant cost reduction in the latest student elections conducted at IIT Madras compared to previous systems.
“On a national scale, we believe our system can save costs by making remote voting possible,” he says.
Therefore, by decentralizing power and eliminating single points of failure, blockchain offers redundancy, traceability, transparency and immutability, all of which are necessary to ensure security and integrity in an electoral system. This mitigates the risks of tampering and manipulation, fostering trust between stakeholders.
GROWTH FOR STATE AND NATIONAL ELECTIONS
The success of the IIT Madras student council elections paves the way for wider adoption of blockchain in electoral processes. The cofounders of startup Plenome aim to extend the system to state and national elections.
However, the journey to large-scale implementation involves overcoming technological, practical and logistical challenges.
“While improving the current infrastructure to work for millions of voters requires massive computer upgrades, improving cybersecurity and other factors, there are also practical issues, such as ensuring a good internet connection, making sure these systems are user-friendly to use and are effectively deployable across various geographies of India, all while being cost-effective,” explains Anirudh Varna.
However, the team aims to solve them iteratively to make it a reality in the general elections.
FUTURE PROSPECTS OF THE USE OF BLOCKCHAIN IN ELECTIONS
The pioneering initiative has garnered widespread support from both students and teachers, signaling a paradigm shift in electoral practices.
“Further improvements to the system are underway based on user feedback. We aim to move to a fully modular framework for conducting elections, where any commission within an entity can conduct elections securely with a simple installation process,” says Anirudh Varna.
“In academia, numerous protocols, encryption algorithms and cryptographic proof mechanisms are being researched and are set to help the field of all decentralized technologies.” Anirudh explains.
Looking to the future, however, the trajectory of blockchain-based electoral systems extends far beyond academia. As businesses and governments recognize the potential of blockchain in securely managing any private data, the prospect of digitized election systems looms large.
“Some countries are developing ‘blockchain backbone’ systems for managing all public data, which also involves holding elections and recording data,” adds Anirudh.
The pioneering efforts of IIT Madras students in conducting India’s first blockchain-based student council elections have set a precedent for inclusive, transparent and secure elections, heralding a new era of digital democracy in India and beyond.
From advances in cryptography to decentralized protocols, the evolution of blockchain promises to redefine the democratic landscape, allowing citizens to exercise their voting rights anywhere, anytime.
Published on:
May 6, 2024