Ethereum Blockchain-based Decentralized Preferential E-Voting Smart Contract using Solidity

Abstract

Various e-voting systems have been provided with the goal of increasing security and reducing costs for a long time. Ethereum Blockchain is a major breakthrough in the tech industry that provides a highly secure platform. As Ethereum, a decentralized platform which runs decentralized applications (DApps), was introduced in the market, the idea of secured voting system finally seemed possible. Organizations have shifted their focus on applications that run on blockchain platforms. It is highly likely that a simple voting method will not lead to a clear majority. There can be a number of ways to deal with this issue, including other potentially voting process, thus costing time and resources which is exactly opposite of the main concern of e-voting systems. Thus, in our paper, we introduce the vote-trading concept where in the absence of a clear majority, votes can be redistributed to other candidates and also this 'majority' factor can be determined by the organization as per their requirement as different organizations can have different winning percentage. We discuss the design and implementation for the Ethereum blockchain based decentralized preferential e-voting system using Solidity programming language where we present the idea of giving preference to candidates, rather than one vote per candidate.