Recording and securely storing election data is essential for maintaining transparency in democratic processes. This data includes voter registrations, election results, and records of irregularities, making accurate recording crucial.
The MIT Election Data and Science Lab highlights that precinct data provides unique local insights, offering more detail than state-level information. “Precinct data can help explain patterns at a local level with much more precision and nuance than data at a higher level of aggregation,” their blog post states.
Challenges of Centralized Election Data Storage
While election data helps evaluate fair elections, storing it on centralized servers can pose risks. Daniel Duke Odongo, Director of Product at Ushahidi, explains that civil organizations, government agencies, or third parties often manage this data. Centralizing it, however, makes it vulnerable to technical failures, cyber-attacks, and potential manipulation.
Odongo emphasizes that, due to limited collaboration between these institutions, data loss or tampering risks increase, which can harm election transparency. Nathan Freitas, Founder of The Guardian Project, adds that traditional databases lack cryptographic signatures or audit trails, which further weakens security.
Decentralized Storage to Safeguard Election Records
To address these issues, some projects are adopting decentralized storage for election data. Ushahidi’s “Election Data Resilience” project, for instance, uses the Filecoin network to decentralize crowd-sourced election reports. This approach distributes data across multiple nodes, reducing risks of unauthorized alterations.
Odongo explains that Filecoin improves data integrity by using cryptographic hashing, making unauthorized changes easy to detect. Ushahidi is piloting this project with local election monitoring groups in Kenya, aiming to create a community-driven election data system.
Using Decentralized Storage to Combat Misinformation
Numbers Protocol is also leveraging decentralized technology to counter misinformation. Partnering with Taiwanese media, they assign blockchain-based digital identities to election images, securing them on Filecoin’s network. Sofia Yan, Co-Founder of Numbers Protocol, shares that during Taiwan’s 2024 elections, they worked with journalists to verify the origin of election content, reducing misinformation risks.
With their Capture App, users can record media with metadata stored immutably on the blockchain, strengthening public trust by securely documenting key events. This initiative will expand to upcoming elections in Indonesia and India.
Challenges in Adopting Decentralized Election Data Storage
Decentralized storage holds promise, but several obstacles remain for wider adoption. Clara Tsao, an officer at the Filecoin Foundation, recognizes that cryptography and distributed systems offer reliable solutions, yet technical challenges persist, especially in regions with limited infrastructure.
To address connectivity issues, Ushahidi is testing a hybrid model that combines local storage with decentralized cloud backups, ensuring data availability even in areas with intermittent internet. Yan adds that regional compliance is crucial, as regulatory challenges still exist.
By addressing these challenges, decentralized storage could become a reliable solution for transparent election data in the future.
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