Blockchain as a Trust Infrastructure for Electoral Voting: A Consensus-Based Approach to Digital Democracy

Abstract

-Ensuring the integrity, transparency, and security of electoral processes remains a central challenge in
modern democratic systems. Traditional voting mechanisms—whether paper-based or electronic—continue to face
concerns related to tampering, centralized control, delayed verification, and lack of end-to-end auditability.
Blockchain technology presents a decentralized alternative capable of providing immutable, transparent, and
verifiable records of electoral transactions. This paper examines blockchain as a trust infrastructure for secure
electoral voting, focusing specifically on consensus mechanisms suited for permissioned environments. The study
evaluates Proof-of-Authority (PoA) and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) algorithms in terms of fault
tolerance, latency, scalability, and resilience against adversarial manipulation. A hybrid framework integrating voter
authentication, encrypted ballot submission, and decentralized validation is proposed to enable tamper-resistant and
privacy-preserving e-voting. The framework ensures voter anonymity while enabling public verifiability through
cryptographic commitments and distributed consensus. Ethical, legal, and socio-technical implications of deploying
blockchain-based digital democracy systems are discussed, including challenges related to digital inclusion, data
protection regulations, and institutional accountability. The findings highlight blockchain’s potential to significantly
enhance electoral trust through decentralized governance while emphasizing the need for comprehensive regulatory
and technological safeguards.