Many vulnerabilities: On using blockchains in electronic voting

Context

ECI is commencing trials of a “remote voting project”. The robustness of blockchains in electronic voting is, as yet, suspect.

It is being developed by IIT-Madras.
It uses the blockchain method for “two-way remote voting” at designated centres.
Remote voting, as an option, has gained some priority during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The blockchain method implements an online public bulletin board that allows for a linear ordering of data to which a user can only further append data.
The board itself is public and available for anyone to read and verify.
In the case of a blockchain-based voting system, the voting authority will have to authenticate this bulletin board in which users sign in using cryptographic signatures to register their votes in a ledger.

While this system uses cryptographic features and promises data security and verifiability. However, it will depend upon a network and devices could introduce vulnerabilities that are present in any Internet-based system.
Blockchains also introduce issues related to complexity and their management.

Mail-in ballot system
In the U.S. the mail-in ballot system was used in the recent presidential election.
The registered voters received ballots and returned it via post or dropped it off at secure “drop boxes” or voting centers.
This was entirely paper based.

Electronic Voting Machine is voting using electronic means to either aid or take care of the chores of casting and counting votes.
It is equipped with a standalone single-chip device, which is not connected to any network.
This is besides several technological and administrative safeguards to ensure that the machine is not tampered with.
With the addition of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) to the EVM, “audit-ability” was added to the process.