Blockchain Voting Suggested by U.S. Senate Staffers
The U.S. Senate staffers floated blockchain voting in an April 30 continuity of Senate memo. The said staffers on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations are the ones hunting for tech to keep the chamber legislating through crises.
In a few days before the Senate’s planned return from its COVID-19 recess – the 29-page memo -preceded the subcommittee’s Thursday roundtable on crisis-time continuity solutions. The said memo is not a proposal to change Senate rules or from the committee that reviews them.
Then, they included the Blockchain-based solutions on the list of suggestions.
In addition to that, they think that the Senate would consider blockchain if its 100 members will vote remotely. Also, they suggested voting on end-to-end encryption platforms. And through a militaresque air-gapped communications system akin to what presidents and generals use.
Blockchain might be the most controversial of the three ideas in the proposal when it comes to remote voting. During the past year, researchers have blasted blockchain and internet-backed voting platforms as insecure and exposed to bugs. With that, it made several election authorities pull out of plans to use them.
Staffers’ View
But the staffers have a different view on this. They noted, “Although some have raised concerns about the use of online systems for voting, those concerns are more specific to secret ballot elections than they are to public Senate voters.”
But this does not mean a Senate blockchain will be an entirely safe blockchain. The staffers are right to fear a 51 percent attack scenario. A malicious actor seized the power of consensus by taking majority control of the voting chain.
In case one could avoid a 51 percent attack and also shore up all bugs – cryptographic or otherwise -, the staffers are bullish on blockchain voting in the Senate. They explained that it puts more transparency and lowers the risk of incorrect vote tallies.
The memo read, “With this encrypted distributed ledger, blockchain can both transmit a vote securely and also verify the correct vote.”
Alleged XRP Security Laws Violations
Elsewhere, Bitcoin Manipulation Abatement LLC recently accuses CEO Brad Garling house of violating laws amid selling and marketing XRP.
The attorneys for a company have filed the lawsuit in a U.S. federal district court. It alleges Ripple for misleading investors and sold XRP as unregistered security in violation of federal law.
Based on the documents filed on May 1, the mysterious entity with only a slight online presence accused Ripple and its CEO of raising over a billion dollars through the sale and marketing of XRP as an unregistered security.
The lawsuit wrote, “Defendants have made a litany of false and misleading statements regarding XRP in violation of California’s securities laws, and false advertising and unfair competition laws.”
Moreover, Bitcoin Manipulation Abatement LLC aims to recover damages and acquire other relief in relation to the alleged violations.
Aside from that, the same company filed a $150 million lawsuit against crypto derivatives exchange FTX last November 2019. And they subsequently dismissed this a month later.
