The author of the bill on Internet voting promised defense through the blockchain. And began to explain how this technology works (oh, in vain!)

The authorities are going to conduct an experiment with Internet voting in the fall of 2019 in the elections to the Moscow City Duma. Voters in one of the districts will have the opportunity to vote remotely - via the Internet. The corresponding bill was submitted to the State Duma. One of his authors Dmitry Vyatkin explained that the Internet voting will be protected with a blockchain. But, it seems, he does not fully understand why they need a blockchain.

Quotes

“Electronic remote voting is planned to be carried out through the Mos.ru electronic information system, which is already operating in Moscow, and it showed itself quite successfully, including when identifying the opinions of residents about the renovation program. It is planned that it will act using blockchain technology, when the data will be divided into certain blocks and it will be impossible to tie them. Suppose, data on the voter, both the data on the results of the vote and the choice of the voter will be processed separately, and it will be impossible to connect them. ” ( RIA "News" )

“This will be taken into account on different media. “Sewing” this information is physically impossible, this is how blockchain technology is built. ” (" Parliamentary newspaper ")

“It will be impossible to tie them. In this way, blockchain technology acts. ” ( TASS )

Fact

The main feature of the blockchain technology is not that the information is divided into blocks that cannot be associated with each other. On the contrary, the blocks with the data there are “tightly” in the chain - not a single old block cannot be unnoticed without touching the new ones. That is, the technology of blockchain in the elections can protect the results of voting from rewriting the results retroactively. But thisis not its only possible application.

To separate data on voters and voting results, blockchain technology is not needed. The principle of separation is used in Internet voting in Estonia. There, these data are also stored separately , and at the time of counting the votes it is impossible to tie them together. But no blockchain in Internet voting is used there.

Conclusion

Perhaps Dmitry Vyatkin correctly called all the key components of the Internet voting in the Moscow City Duma:

• Using blockchain to protect against falsifications
• Separate storage of voter lists and voting results

But his explanation is how they are connected, at least strange.

Denis Dmitriev