b) I don’t think vote stuffing is solved by blockchain as that requires more work at polling site, audit of voting software, etc. but that’s an existing problem that is a higher risk by citizens not knowing if their vote is counted. A blockchain voting solution doesn’t solve all problems, just some of them.
There are likely better approaches. I was just responding to the question of how this could help and why useful since someone upstream was worried about anonymity.
I don't see why it would be necessary to have a blockchain. It would work just as well for the election authority to publish the official database of all votes and everybody ensuring that their vote is in that database.
> There are likely better approaches. I was just responding to the question of how this could help and why useful since someone upstream was worried about anonymity.
Right. The approach with a personal verification key is a good one.
It would also reduce the ability to pad with votes after the fact. Would help for analysis of any abnormalities (eg, five times population voting, stuff like that).
I think it becomes more useful the less trustworthy the government (eg, Russia).
Apart from the problem that this enables vote buying or coercion, it also:
(a) is a good use for a public database, but putting that public database on the blockchain is just a useless complication of things; and
(b) only addresses part of the problem: yes, any voter's vote is counted; but is everything that's counted an actual person's unique vote? That is, this doesn't protect against ballot stuffing by multiple voting or by simply faking database entries.
Overall, not a terribly good approach, and even if it were, no need to "blockchain" it.