[Panel 2] Frontiers of technological and democratic innovation: feminism, blockchain, cybersecurity, sortition

E-vote with blockchain and municipal referenda: the case of a bottom-up proposal in Naples

Presenting a prototype of software and procedure for e-voting via blockchain in official polling booths, in public elections or consultative referendums. The technology was designed by an interdisciplinary Group, in a process of grassroots democracy in the City of Naples, triggered by a public call of the mayor De Magistris, open to inhabitants, expert in civil, social and economic activism, as well as law, ICT and others. The Group’s objective is to enact open, transparent and distributed voting procedures, allowing a more frequent and effective consultation of inhabitants on municipal matters, which can increase the autonomy of local democracies.

The technology has been designed by joining together different expertises, in mathematics and cryptography, software engineering and development, law and electoral procedures. The provisional result is: a draft voting procedure, which integrates technology in the traditional electoral process, with official polling booths, to protect the constituents’ privacy and anonymity. Such procedure also limits vote-buying, by allowing everyone to change her vote multiple times until he gets out of the polling booth; two pieces of open software (eVoting; eDiscover) that use blockchain technology to store the votes in an anonymous and immutable way, and remove counting errors”.

Gambling in digital participation platforms

Throwing a coin in the air determines who ends up chosen. It’s random. But, is that democratic? The draw as a way to extend democracy today is applied in various participatory processes. In the different experiences known since the G1000 in Belgium or the Observatory from the city of Madrid we find different ways to apply it but always with the same motivation: to achieve a more plural and representative participation. 

How can a digital participation platform help in a draw process? To answer that question the main topics to go over in this session are: Universe of participation, how is the draw made?; Phases of a draw-based process; Mechanisms to facilitate the deliberation as the main axis of the project; Mediation, facilitation and accompaniment; Relationship with gamified systems; Privacy and Transparency; Publication of the results; Evaluation of the process. 

The aim of the session is to work on those aspects from the digital participation platforms that can be useful with this mechanism. Analyze in which of the phases of these processes the draw is involved and how a platform can serve as support to guarantee a good development of the process.