Vocdoni
Description
Ferran Reyes:
"Vocdoni is a decentralized, censorship-resistant and transparent digital voting system. The idea of building Vocdoni was conceived informally among crypto enthusiasts, cryptographers, and distributed systems experts stunned by the effectiveness of the censorship over the 2017 Catalan referendum. This group’s goal was to develop a decentralized governance system that would bypass any form of censorship anywhere in the world, similar to what Bitcoin did for finances. The project has gone through many phases since then, and as of today we already count with a voting protocol that is censorship resistant, transparent, extremely flexible, universally verifiable, highly scalable and cost-effective. Vocdoni Protocol has been tested successfully with hundreds of organizations, and we are currently developing a new product called Vocdoni API to make it even easier to integrate our protocol on any 3rd party software. Our goal is to provide everyone, Web3 or Web2, with a secure and reliable digital voting system. As Stripe did with digital payments, we want to make secure voting accessible to companies of all sizes worldwide."
How-To
Ferran Reyes:
"Vocdoni is agnostic to the identity layer and the organizations are responsible for the census creation.
Web3 organizations can use different workarounds for organizing voting processes based on one-person, one-vote schemes, for example:
1) implement distributed identity systems for Sybil-attack* resistance like Proof of Humanity, BrightID or Gitcoin Passport,
2) whitelist wallets of participants, or
3) airdrop non-transferable NFTs to known participants."
Example
Francis Reyes:
* "Blockchain for Good: You said that you collaborated with a Catalan municipality to organize a referendum. Can you tell us why this public actor needed to use a digital voting solution?
FR: This can be attributed to several factors. To begin with, traditional digital voting companies charge a high price for their services. Thus, they were interested in our solution, which is much cheaper thanks to the fact that we’re an open protocol used by many organizations at the same time. In addition, we pay a lot of attention to user-friendliness and accessibility. Finally, there are mayors and councilors who have a clear vision in favor of transparent and open-source technologies.
* BfG: A question that particularly concerns the small villages you went to. There must be a lot of people who don’t know or don’t frequently use digital tools, how did you get these people on board with your solution?
FR: The organization handling the vote is usually responsible for that. However, it is important not to confuse digital voting with remote voting. There are several options available for digital voting, including remote voting, voting in a polling station using a specific machine, or both at the same time. During the referendum in Bellpuig municipality, even the elderly were able to participate because the system was so simple: first, you authenticate with your credentials and a secret code, then the question appears, you choose yes or no, you click, and the vote is completed. We pay a lot of attention to accessibility, it is one of our strengths.
* BfG: Is there a solution that has had a particular impact on participation?
FR: Yes, especially for large organizations with members spread over a whole territory or even the entire globe. By using Vocdoni, the organizations are able to ensure that their members have the right to participate remotely. In the case of the referendum we conducted in Catalonia, in which citizens were able to vote from their homes, we saw one of the highest turnouts (31,6%) in this type of consultation.