The Limits of Blockchain Democracy

Should political elections be implemented on the blockchain? Blockchain evangelists have argued that they should. This article sheds light on the potential of blockchain voting procedures and the legal constraints they need to accommodate. In a first step, I discuss potential “democracy benefits” of distributed ledger technology and the legal framework ordering the use of electronic voting systems in general. Comparing U.S. and German constitutional law, I then distill specific normative principles guiding the use of blockchain voting systems. In a second step, I analyze the technical, economic, and normative limitations of blockchain voting procedures. I show that major limitations result from the rules and incentives set by different consensus mechanisms. Moreover, it is not clear whether blockchain technology provides sufficient safeguards to ensure identity verification, the secrecy of ballots, and the verification that ballots are cast as intended, recorded as cast, and counted as recorded. Building on principles from constitutional law, I contend that blockchain technology does not provide sufficient safeguards to satisfy the requirements of democratic voting procedures – at least not in the near future.

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