E-voting is among the key public sectors that can be disrupted by blockchain technology. The
idea in blockchain- enabled e-voting (BEV) is simple. To use a digital- currency analogy, BEV
issues each voter a “wallet” containing a user credential. Each voter gets a single “coin”
representing one opportunity to vote. Casting a vote transfers the voter’s coin to a candidate’s
wallet. A voter can spend his or her coin only once. However, voters can change their vote
before a preset deadline. Here, we argue that blockchains might address two of the most
prevalent concerns in voting today: voter access and voter fraud. The idea is as follows. Eligible
voters cast a ballot anonymously using a computer or smartphone. BEV employs an encrypted
key and tamperproof personal IDs. For example, the mobile e-voting platform of the Boston
based startup Voatz employs smart biometrics and real-time ID verification. The public ledger
ties each cast ballot to an individual voter and establishes a permanent, immutable record. No
bad actor can engage in nefarious activities because such activities will be evident on the ledger
or corrected by a peer-to-peer consensus network. To compromise the network, hackers would
need to successfully hack most of the blocks (files with transaction records) before new blocks
were introduced. The blockchain’s audit trail ensures that no vote has been changed or removed
and that no fraudulent and illegitimate votes have been added. Putsimply, blockchains enable
the creation of tamper-proof audit trails for voting. In this article, we highlight some BEV
implementations and the approach’s potential benefits and challenges.