Blockchain-Based Voting for Diaspora Communities: A Secure Remote Solution

Abstract

Diaspora communities around the world face significant challenges in participating in their home countries’ democratic processes. Physical distance, lack of access to reliable mailing systems, bureaucratic hurdles, and concerns over the integrity and transparency of traditional voting methods have all contributed to low electoral participation among these populations. These barriers not only undermine the principles of universal suffrage but also marginalize a vital segment of the citizenry whose remittances and contributions are crucial to national development. To address these challenges, this paper presents a secure, remote blockchain-based voting solution specifically tailored for diaspora populations. The proposed system leverages blockchain technology’s fundamental characteristics: immutability, transparency, decentralization, and automation through smart contracts to create a tamper-proof and auditable voting process. It ensures end-to-end verifiability, voter anonymity, resistance to fraud, and increased trust in electoral outcomes. The architecture includes secure digital identity verification using biometric authentication, voter registration via blockchain wallets, encrypted vote casting through a decentralized application (dApp), and result tallying via smart contracts hosted on a permissioned blockchain such as Hyperledger Fabric. The use of distributed ledger technology ensures that every vote is recorded immutably and can be independently audited without compromising voter privacy. A case study focusing on the Rwandan diaspora demonstrates the solution’s viability in a real-world context. A prototype implementation involving 500 virtual voters was tested for performance, identity verification accuracy, and transaction integrity. Findings indicated that the system successfully prevented double voting, ensured rapid vote confirmation, and was positively received by users in terms of usability and trustworthiness. This paper further discusses the legal, social, and technological implications of implementing such a system at scale. It emphasizes the importance of regulatory alignment, public awareness campaigns, digital literacy initiatives, and government-diaspora collaboration. The paper concludes by proposing a phased implementation roadmap starting with small-scale pilots leading to potential national deployment, ensuring that blockchain-based voting becomes a sustainable and inclusive channel for diaspora engagement in democratic processes.