Blockchain
The technology for 21st century elections
What is a blockchain?
A blockchain is a decentralized database that stores information in blocks and sequentially adds them to the chain.
This chain is distributed among multiple network computers or 'nodes' to ensure that multiple people or organizations have a copy of the data to ensure its integrity. Such a system is more reliable because it is not controlled by one organization and any member of the network can verify the accuracy of the data. In addition, the blockchain is more difficult to hack – to do so would require hacking more than half of the computers on the network, rather than one node.
What are smart contracts?
A smart contract is a special program that is recorded on the blockchain and is a kind of digital agreement that performs an action subject to certain conditions.
If that sounds complicated, think of a smart contract like a subway turnstile that controls entry to the station. To use the subway, you need to meet a condition – sufficient funds on your card to pay for a trip. If you don't have enough to pay for a trip, the turnstile doesn't open. This is the basic premise of a smart contract – an action is performed only when the conditions are guaranteed to be met. In the case of digital voting, smart contracts record votes on the blockchain provided that the voters have access to vote.
Why is blockchain suitable for voting?
All data that enters the blockchain (votes and results) is immutable, it cannot be deleted or quietly changed.
At the same time, the information on the blockchain is in the public domain, which means a voter can check their vote and confirm it has been accepted. Votes are counted automatically, which speeds up the process and eliminates the risk of errors and falsifications. All this adds up to make the blockchain a reliable, transparent and secure system that's ideal for online voting.
How is vote secrecy ensured?
To hide the intermediate results and ensure the secrecy of individual votes, Polys uses cryptographic encryption algorithms.
Votes are anonymized using a blind signature mechanism in such a way that no one, neither the organizer of the vote nor an attacker, can discover how a particular voter voted. Votes are stored on the blockchain in an encrypted and anonymous form.
How are voting results deciphered?
During the creation of a vote, a pair of keys is generated – one public, for encryption, and one secret, for decrypting the results.
The secret key remains with the vote organizer (or is divided among several organizers); the public key is published on the blockchain. To encrypt a vote, the voter receives a public key from the blockchain and sends their encrypted vote to the blockchain. After voting ends, the secret key is published on the blockchain, and each participant in the process can check that all the votes have been decrypted correctly.
How Polys applications work on the blockchain
Voting Organizer Panel
The Organizer Panel is an application for creating a vote, a constructor where you can set the voting parameters: title, ballot options or candidate names, number of voters and how they will be authorized. The panel enables the Organizer to start and stop voting, monitor turnout and print a protocol with the voting results upon completion.
Voter Application
The Voter app is the voting app itself. There are three types of voter authorization in the Polys system: email, PIN, and open voting. In all three cases, voters receive a voting link from the Organizer, where they can cast their vote. Polys technology ensures that voter IDs are verified, votes are encrypted and added to the blockchain, and the results are counted correctly.
Observer Application
The Observer app allows all participants and third parties to monitor the voting process and voter turnout in real time without compromising anonymity. Voters can follow the link to the Observer app and verify that their votes have indeed been recorded on the blockchain and counted correctly.
Additional advantages of Polys
Our goal is to make online voting fair, accessible, transparent, and efficient.
SecurityAn important component that ensures the security of our solution is cryptography: we protect elections from interference by any third party, including Polys.
TransparencyAll interested parties can verify votes are recorded and counted correctly, and that the voting protocol data complies with the data received on the blockchain during the voting.
PrivacyThe voter's choice and identity are protected by the blind signature mechanism we use for anonymization. No one will be able to find out how a particular person voted.
AccessibilityVoting from a digital device eliminates the need for voters to travel to the polling station. This can have a positive impact on turnout among young people, citizens abroad and people with limited mobility.
VerifiabilityBlockchain technology provides our voting system with verifiability due to the immutability of the data written to it and the ability to verify the logic of all processes defined by smart contracts.
EconomyThe cost savings come from the digitization of paper and manual processes like vote counting, the reduced number of polling stations that need to be serviced, and the automation of audit mechanisms.
Create secure online voting
With Polys, you can organize a vote of up to 20 voters at no cost.
Polys is a blockchain-based online voting platform backed with underlying crypto algorithms.