Demystifying Distributed Ledgers
- EIP-TDL implementations require votes to be stored in a what amounts to a be single ledger. You should take comfort in that because a ledger is a "tried and true" manner of storing all information in the form of a permanent set of transactions. Anyone who has ever taken an accounting class is familiar with them. It's essentially a long list of entries to a single immutable ledger. All entries are either debits or credits. Ledgers are widely used in accredited accounting systems all across the world, and there's a reason for that. Your bank statement is a ledger
With EIP, your vote is a transaction where only credits are allowed
That single publicly available list of transactions is the election! What could be simpler?
- Distributed Ledgers (DL) are part of the Web3 infrastructure. Web3 Technology is sweeping the Internet with an ancient, tried and true concept using a modern twist:
Rather than using a traditional database (e.g., SQL) where all data can be manipulated at any time after it is persisted, ledgers require each operation on the persistent store to be in the form of an entry placed at the end of the list, usually in chronological order. One important effect of this practice is that it automatically forms a history log of every change made to the list. When this practice is enforced by Web3 technology, it makes any attempt to alter previously recorded data impossible. This means fraud attempts are easily and immediately detected and handled on the spot
A distributed ledger is just that - an electronic ledger that is physically located in multiple places simultaneously, forming a distributed "database". EIP-TDL requires these as the only manner in which all final persistent secondary storage may be performed. The defining critical capability these offer over past storage practices is that DLs are immutable and tamper-proof
Under the hood, DLs may use blockchain technology, but not in exactly the same manner as in cryptocurrency. It's actually much simpler because the problem space of elections is much simpler with fewer requirements than that of a currency exchange
Distribution enables consensus by housing ledgers as part of a DL Network, one for each election. The canonical configuration is to have each jurisdiction operate as a node on the network
Each participating node (e.g., a county) has copies of all the other participating node ledgers and continuously verifies each ledger in real time as votes come in
A blockchain is really nothing but a data structure implemented in a specific manner to create a more secure, tamper resistent distributed ledger
Time permitting, we can guide you in building your own distributed ledger, or point you toward a certified implementation which may or may not be free of cost (that's up to the free market to decide)