[Source] Electronic Newspaper 04.09.2023 [Blockchain that changes people’s daily lives] 〈2〉Online voting without worrying about ‘vote manipulation and violation of secrecy principles’
[Original article]
The government has begun strengthening the 'online referendum system' to prevent distrust in online voting, such as manipulation of voting and counting and violation of secret voting principles. By applying blockchain-based Zero-Knowledge Proof technology to the National Election Commission's online voting system (K-Voting),
we are able to kill two birds with one stone, including transparent verification of voting and counting and guaranteeing secret voting, so that the public can trust us. We plan to build a system that has
The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) are promoting the 'Blockchain-based online voting system expansion project' as a 'public sector blockchain intensive project' this year. This is to improve the online voting system as online referendums were allowed with the revision of the Referendum Act in October last year.
NHN Injae INC and ZCrypto Consortium participated in this project. NHN Talent I&C is upgrading the online voting system to increase user convenience, including improving the user environment (UI).
zkypto applies ‘ZKvoting’, a blockchain online voting technology developed by the company, to the system.
Online voting poses a dilemma. Public blockchains cannot adhere to the principle of secret elections because data is visible to everyone, while existing closed blockchains can protect voters, but it is difficult to verify whether the votes were cast properly.
The system that overcomes these blind spots of online voting is GK Voting. In a public blockchain environment, zero-knowledge proof technology is used to ensure secret voting and prevent vote manipulation. Zero-knowledge proof is a technology that can verify data validity without disclosing personal information. This resolves the dilemma of having to give up either fair and transparent vote verification or flawless secret voting.
Using zero-knowledge proof technology, you can verify whether a vote is valid by keeping the voting content secret through an encryption key and checking whether the voter is a voter in the relevant election and whether there are duplicate votes. During the vote counting process, zero-knowledge proof technology shines. The National Election Commission decrypts the encrypted votes and counts them. Although the voting results can be known, it is not possible to confirm which voter the voter is. In addition, the reliability of the vote counting results is also guaranteed by creating a separate zero-knowledge proof that can verify the announcement of the National Election Commission.
Election principles such as universal, equal, and direct elections are observed as well as secret elections. Starting with English services, we will provide election services for foreigners, while laying the foundation for cloud-based blockchain nodes to participate in the mid- to long-term. The plan is to strengthen accessibility by diversifying identity authentication methods, such as supporting mobile driver's licenses. In addition, applications and web are developed together to lower the barriers to use.
In addition, it is expected that the number of voters in metropolitan local governments will reach approximately 10 million, and plans are made to secure performance that can accommodate large-scale online voting. As we proceed with the infrastructure expansion phase, we will also pursue the advancement of the voter list registration system and the strengthening of the security system.
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