Decisions are a crucial mainstay of a vote-based framework empowering the overall population to communicate their perspectives as a vote. Because of their importance to our general public, the political decision procedure ought to be straightforward and dependable to guarantee members of its validity. Inside this unique circumstance, the way to deal with casting a ballot has been a regularly advancing area. This development is essentially determined by the endeavours to make the framework secure, certain and straightforward. Taking into account its centrality, consistent endeavours have been made to improve the general proficiency and versatility of the democratic framework. Electronic democratic or e-casting a ballot has a significant job in this. Since its first use as punched-card polling forms in the 1960s, e-casting a ballot framework have accomplished astounding advancement with its adaption utilizing the web advances (Gobel et al, 2015). In any case, e-casting a ballot framework must hold fast to explicit benchmark parameters to encourage its boundless selection. These parameters incorporate secrecy of the voter, uprightness of the vote and non-renouncement among others.

Blockchain is one of the rising advances with solid cryptographic establishments empowering applications to use these capacities to accomplish versatile security arrangements. A Blockchain looks like an information structure that keeps up and shares all the exchanges being executed through its beginning. It is essentially a conveyed decentralized database that keeps up a total rundown of continually sprouting and developing information records made sure about from unapproved controlling, altering and modification. Blockchain permits each client to associate with the system, send new exchanges to it, confirm exchanges and make new squares (Rosenfeld, 2017; Kadam et al, 2015; Nakamoto, 2009). Each square is allotted a cryptographic hash (which may likewise be treated as a unique mark of the square) that remaining parts legitimate as long as the information in the square isn’t adjusted. If any progressions are made in the square, the cryptographic hash would change promptly showing the adjustment in the information which might be because of a vindictive movement. Consequently, because of its solid establishments in cryptography, blockchain has been progressively used to alleviate unapproved exchanges across different spaces (Nakamoto, 2009; Kraft, 2015; Narayanan et al, 2015).

Bitcoin remains the most recognized utilization of blockchain anyway specialists are quick to investigate the utilization of blockchain innovation to encourage applications across various spaces utilizing advantages, for example, non-denial, uprightness and namelessness. In this paper, we investigate the utilization of blockchain to encourage

e-casting a ballot application with the capacity to guarantee voter obscurity, vote trustworthiness and end-to-confirmation. We accept e-casting a ballot can use from key blockchain highlights, for example, self-cryptographic approval structure among exchanges (through hashes) and open accessibility of disseminated record of records. Blockchain innovation can assume a key job in the space of electronic democracy because of the innate nature of safeguarding obscurity, keeping up decentralized and openly dispersed records of exchanges over all the hubs. This makes blockchain innovation proficient to manage the danger of using a democratic token more than once and the endeavour to impact the straightforwardness of the outcome.

Statement Of the Problem

An election is always an issue in most countries in the world due to their competitive nature based on their democracies. The democracy in these countries is growing and as elections come in their intervals based on each country’s constitution, the strength is always tested. The most common procedure in which most countries apply is through a paper-based system. With many candidates vying for positions, the competition becomes stiff and when most of them lose, they tend not to trust the process and they feel rigged out. This has become a household norm in most of these countries. The emergence of digital voting around first world countries has come as a boost to these third world countries. The blockchain is a public ledger of all transactions done on the voting day. It stores these transactions in a block which eventually becomes completed and added to linear and chronological order for accurate verifiable results. Estonia is the first country in the world to do online voting in 2007 and in 2015, 30.5% of votes of parliamentary elections were done through the i-voting system (Vabiriigi, 2016).

Block chain is giving a chance for direct democracy as people can decide a course of policy themselves. Block chain can also be used for polling, census and business decisions. This study is aimed to assess the effect of cost, time and data security on votes for verifiable election results on an online system using block chain.

Study Objectives

Study Questions

Research Methodology

This study will utilize a qualitative research design that accentuates literary examination in social research (Bryman 2012). The motivation behind subjective research is to comprehend or clarify conduct and convictions, recognize forms and comprehend the setting of individuals’ encounters (Hennink, Hutter and Bailey 2011).

As per Creswell (2007), unique methodologies for subjective research incorporate phenomenology, account, grounded hypothesis, contextual analysis and ethnography. The contextual analysis is esteemed fitting for this examination as it gives point by point, top to the bottom assortment of information including various wellsprings of data.

The study will take place in Nairobi County eight categories of interviewees will be sampled and interviewed.

The utilization of ‘educated ‘ here alludes to respondents who have finished secondary school or more, while the term ‘uneducated’ is utilized for interviewees with no training or who have dropped out from (essential) training.

One Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) member of staff will be chosen and met. The IEBC is an independent regulatory agency responsible for conducting or supervising referenda and elections. Altogether 17 interviewees will partake in the study. The determination of respondents thought about their age, casting a ballot involvement with the last two races All interviewees will be guaranteed that the data they gave will be carefully secret and for scholastic purposes as it were. Before the meetings, the examination’s target will disclose to the interviewees after which they were approached to sign the assent structure showing their eagerness to proceed. Each meeting will last somewhere in the range of 35 and an hour and occur at scenes of their decision, for the most part, their own homes and open places, for example, bars and cafés.

Pilot Testing of Research Instruments

There will be a pretesting of the research instruments using two women groups. This will help to ascertain their reliability. Cronbach’s Alpha will be used to apply internal consistency techniques. An Alpha range between 0 and 0.9 will indicate higher or good reliability of the instruments.

Validity Of Instruments

This is the measure of how well a test measures what it is supposed to measure (Kombo and Tromp,2009). It is more imperative that the researcher conducts a pilot test on both the questionnaires and any other instruments before using them in the actual study (Macmillan and Schmacher, 2001). The researcher in this case will use two women groups and two representatives to ascertain the validity of the instruments. Face validity will also be used to test whether the test measured what it was supposed to measure. Content validity on the other hand will be used to check whether the items in the questionnaires match with the research objectives. Expert judgment will also be a must by the supervisors to validate the instruments.

Reliability Of Research Instruments

This refers to the degree to which a procedure yields similar results in repeated trials (Orodho, 2004). A pilot study helps in enhancing the reliability of any given research instrument. Pretesting on the sample to women groups will help to gauge the clarity and relevance of the instrument items. Items that will be found to be inadequate in measuring variables will either be discarded or modified to improve the quality of the research instruments.

Internal consistency techniques will be applied using Cronbach’s Alpha to test the reliability of the instruments. A coefficient between 0.6 and 0.7 will indicate acceptable reliability. A coefficient of 0.8 or higher will indicate higher or good reliability. In cases where the Alpha value is above 0.9 will indicate redundancy hence the test length needs to be shortened.

Data Analysis Techniques.

Data collected will be cross-examined and its accuracy ascertained. This will be an opportunity to look at spelling mistakes as well as spaces left blank. Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 12 will be the most appropriate in analysing the quantitative data. Qualitative data will be presented through percentages and frequencies. This will give statistics that will help in discussing the findings.

Ethical Considerations.

Utmost propriety will be required during the handling of the information collected from the respondents. The research will promise voluntary participation of the respondents and the information will only be used for the purpose intended.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

Overview

This chapter gives what is the literature and abstract concept of blockchain technology. In this regard, the chapter will commence with discussing the theoretical background for this research, following with reviewing related literature about blockchain technology in the African context. In particular, this chapter has (1) details on the structure of the blockchain electoral method, (2) a description detailing the applicability of the system in Africa, (3), its effects on the turnout of voters and rigging prevention, (4), the effectiveness of the system, (5) the security of the system, and (6) the long-term effects of the system. The segment of the literature review ends with a brief conclusion of the detailed information discussed, establishing the literature gap it strived to seal.

Theoretical Background

Will of the people is a well-respected phenomenon for the representation of opinion in the formation of electoral bodies. These electoral bodies vary from the college unions to the parliaments. Over the years, ‘the vote’ has emerged as a tool for representing the will of the people when a selection is to be made among the available choices (Fleisch, 2017). The voting tool has helped to improve the trust of people over the selection they make by a vote of the majority. This has certainly helped in the democratization of the voting process and the value of the voting system to elect the parliaments and governments. Tian (2016) posits that since the trust of people is increasing in democracies, it is important that they don’t lose their trust in the vote and voting system. By virtue of the emerging trust in the democratic institutions, the voting system emerged as a platform to help people to elect their representatives, who consequently form the governments. The power of representation empowers the people with a trust that the government shall take care of the national security, national issues like health and education policies, international relations, and taxation for the benefit of the people, (Dong, 2018).

To make the voting process more effective, institutions like the ‘Electoral Commission’ came into existence in different parliamentary democracies. The institutions, along with setting up the process and legislation for conducting the elections, formed the voting districts, electoral process, and the balloting systems to help in the conduct of transparent, free, and fair elections, (Njilla, 2017). The concept of secret voting has been in existence since the beginning of the voting system. Since the trust in democratic systems is increasing it is important to uphold that the trust in voting should not decrease. In the recent past, there have been several examples where it was noted that the voting process was not completely hygienic and faced several issues including transparency and fairness, and the will of people was not observed to be effectively quantified and translated in terms of the formation of the governments. Such examples can be vastly found in countries like Nigeria, Zambia, Malawi, and Mali (Chan, 2019).

According to Sill (2017), since all these countries are among the emerging democracies, it is pretty likely that in the next decades they will emerge as full democracies and the vote and the voting process will earn more respect and trust over time. Osgood (2016) elucidates the disadvantages of such mistrusts as follows:

The electoral process in Africa has for long been the ballot-box method in which voters get pre-registered before the election. On the election day, the citizens reach the polling stations for verification to ensure an individual vote only one time. Voting happens after verification where a citizen is given a ballot paper to tick their preferred candidates from the presidency to the ward representatives (Chan, 2019). The assigned employees of the electoral commission open the boxes, tally, and announce the winner based on the highest votes. In the contemporary world, the voting method remains adopted by multiple nations in Africa. However, the system is vulnerable and this is evident by the many rigging cases in African elections. These riggings have contributed to mass corruption and public funds mismanagement (Bassey, Anweting, & Maashin, 2019). Multiple opposition leaders have called for protests. For example, Besigye has constantly called on the citizens of Uganda to protest against elections results by claiming to rig (Alhuwalia, 2016). To date, Africa experiences multiple election backlashes that lead to unstable political environments. The method used for elections has sparked endless chaos because most politicians manipulate it for their selfish gains. The unemployed youths suffer mostly because they get accustomed to violent acts for minute returns. A good case of the misuse of unemployed youths is in Nigeria (Yahaya & Bello, 2020). Despite multiple attempts by electoral commissions in Africa to avoid rigging, the incumbents seem to thrive through the current electoral method. Nonetheless, some African countries have tried to embrace electronic voting methods for the enhancement of security and provide just elections. Namibia, for example, initiated electoral voting used by India. After elections, the electoral commission of the nation cited multiple challenges where the main problem was a slow verification of the voters. In this regard, most voters opted out of the exercise due to the delay, meaning that the electoral results did not present the will of several people. Conversely, Nigeria adopted a biometric system in 2015 but faced similar challenges. The 2015 election was considered the most successful ones in the recent history of Nigeria (Alebiosu, 2016). However, it was not a comprehensive system as massive delays got witnessed. Blockchain presents an opportunity to overcome all these challenges. The system contains concrete cryptography security, is publicly certifiable, transparent, and integrated.

Blockchain technology has a track record of being used in money transactions like peer-to-peer and currency online payments, and settlement of advanced resources. Additionally, the system may work in public services, utilitarian treaties, security services, web systems, and name systems. Importantly, blockchain has displayed its credibility by working flawlessly and with no controversies for some years (Chakrabarti & Chaudhuri, 2017). Some of the main benefits of the blockchain system for election, as opposed to the existing ballot box, entails safety, and convenience for the citizens as well as the electoral commission to apply and manage correspondingly (Osgood, 2016). Gatteschi et al. claim that data cannot be erased or altered once entered into a blockchain system (2018). In this light, it safeguards votes because no one can change what gets entered. Hence, it is a very trustworthy means since blockchain could be structured as some public immutable ledger. Besides, blockchain is cheaper compared to the ballot box in running and maintenance.

For successful implementation of a blockchain voting system in elections, there are fundamental structures that need adhering, thus African nations need to be careful to realize the structural requirements. First, the electoral commission should amass the verified bio-information of the voters before the election commences. It could happen via capturing previous data like the identification cards of the citizens or developing a permanent card for voting. However, each approach should make sure that the biodata of the voter gets accessed on the system by only the assigned staff. Importantly, the information of the voter should not be accessed by third-party networks since it would be compromised. Besides, the method must achieve the anonymity of voters. In this regard, high-end encryption methods must protect the identity of the voter. Failing to do this violates the rights of the voters and could endanger their lives in some instances, Chan S. (2019). Furthermore, the blockchain is transparent, which counters most challenges of the modern African electoral method. In the blockchain system proposed by this research, every node has a public ledger across the network, which registers every casted vote, providing essential information for the verification of the legitimacy of casted votes without violating the confidentiality of the voters. Any updates or alterations can only be executed in agreement with every node participant. Finally, security remains paramount in this age of cyber-crime. Complete security usually defends any form of potential attacks and unplanned flow of data internally as well as data maladministration. As such, concrete security techniques and measures should prevail for the protection of shared information across networks. Block provides high encryption as a measure and methods like a nonce, consensus, smart-contract, and previous block harsh everywhere among others. Thus, the data remains well-protected as well as indestructible.

The facts founded the theoretical framework for this research. When the technology gets incorporated in the African nations’ electoral process in a proper approach, citizens gain more confidence. The reason is that the voters can execute voting without fear of violence, incredible results, and interference in the process as well as accords them the assurance that their choice is anonymous. In addition, the votes remain public. These advantages accord citizens confidence and trust in the electoral system. This should automatically translate to greater voter turn-out ceteris paribus.

Conceptual Framework

The above is the conceptual framework for this study. In this framework, the electoral process is the independent variable while short processing time, transparency of the voting process, the anonymity of voters as well as security of the whole process are the dependent variables. In the framework, it is envisaged that after the implementation of blockchain technology, the following benefits will be observed:

Blockchain in Electoral Process

Fig 1: Blockchain in the electoral process Source: Author

Related Literature

Mistrust in voting is not an uncommon phenomenon in Africa, (Chan 2019), nor in the developed countries. To improve trust, the least thing that can be done in this regard is the orientation of electronic voting based on biometric authentication. This may help in solving half of the problems being faced by many countries in the electoral process. E-voting systems have been used by few countries in the recent past in Estonia, Ireland and Norway; while some are not going to use them anymore to eliminate the audit problems (Wu, 2017).

The blockchain concept is known to originate from a paper on Bitcoin (Shehzad, 2017) published in 2008 by someone in the name of Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency and remains the most widespread blockchain application today. It is believed that the inventor created Bitcoin to offer an alternative to the central bank-controlled monetary system, which many people consider as one possible cause of the global economic crisis around 2008.

Blockchain technology was borrowed from the concept of bitcoin technology to address the fears of lack of credibility in the electoral process. Basin et al. (2017) has presented an example from the canton of Valais Switzerland in March 2017, where the postal ballots were not received by the voters, and when the ballots were re-issued, it was identified that the vote of the affected voters had already been cast. Although Switzerland, has an e-voting system, it still allows its voters to vote either electronically or by post or by physically going to the polling station. The e-voting system also needs more security, privacy, and transparency to become a completely reliable system of voting. Bevelander (2018) and Pendakur (2019) mentioned there being controversies in the election of student’s union elections held in Austria in 2009. The constitutional court of Austria considered this election invalid as the electoral committee was not regulated and the process of vote and voter verification was found to be beneath the security standards.

Volkamer et al. (2016) stated that the Irish government used e-voting machines in 2002 general elections. These machines were bought for €55 million. During the audit, it was discovered that the machines were not reliable, and its outcome could not be trusted concretely as there were issues with the paper trail and the verification system. The Irish government later opted to scrap the machines despite this initiative costing €55 million to the Irish taxpayers. For similar reasons, Germany and the Netherlands, also decided to permanently ban the voting machines at political votes.

Wolchok et al. (2010) provide an insight into the use and vulnerabilities of electronic voting machines (EVM’s) both in terms of software, hardware, and other related challenges. Parshad has discussed several incidences where the malfunctioning of either hardware or software was reported while in some cases it was also observed that the EVM’s in use for the election day had modified hardware and/or software in anticipation. It was also reported that the few US scientists belonging to the University of Michigan (experimentally) could intervene in the Indian elections and could play with the numbers. full-fledged elections where the power of the solution looks compromised to address the challenges.

Rivest (2006) has presented the concept of providing three ballots to the voter where the voter will cast all the ballot papers after marking. Each ballot paper contains a unique identifier but the voter remains anonymous as the keys are decrypted. At the time of tabulation, the votes cast are linked and the choice found on two ballot papers is chosen while the choice with one ballot paper is rejected. The scheme may not be effectively used if there are only two contestants or if there are several contestants. The scheme also has the disadvantage of being slow and the human error increases if the votes are not accurately poled in the respective boxes.

Votem (2018) presents a commercial solution that deals with a token-based system built on blockchain technology and thus ensure the anonymity and security of the voting system. The solution is more suitable for e-voting where the physical and biometric authentication of the voter is not utilized. The token-based system, however, limits the applicability of the voting platform to be used effectively in wide-ranged, full-fledged elections where the power of the solution looks compromised to address the challenges. The blockchain developed for electronic voting can either be kept public or private (Pilkington, 2016), (Gabison, 2016). In the public blockchain, however, the contents of the transactions remain visible to everybody in the blockchain. It is therefore important to encrypt the contents of the blocks by using some secure algorithms. These algorithms must be secured and applied effectively to recover the encrypted contents. This makes the transaction a bit slower and the power of electronic voting and blockchain is compromised. To overcome this challenge, the private blockchain is suggested. It can however be noted that many challenges may originate during the software development aspect (Shahzad, 2018) of the blockchain-based e-voting solution while the mobile-based solutions have their respective security and privacy challenges (Al-Muhtadi, 2017) while there are certain concerns, trends, and challenges to be considered for developing social media apps for such systems (Abbasi, 2018).

Zheng et al. (2018) has shown some concerns about using the blockchain for electronic voting. The e-voting system demands that a blockchain is responsive and scalable at all times to get an efficient response to formulate the overall results. In this regard, the block size must be of adequate size. Currently, the bitcoin blockchain covers 100’s of gigabytes of storage which makes the addition of blocks and information retrieval quite slow. Johnson et al. (2019) are of the view that in blockchain-based electronic voting systems the users make the transitions based on the addresses and not on their identity and in case if there is information leakage, the users can generate several addresses. It is tough for the blockchain mechanism to ensure transactional privacy since the information of all transactions and public keys are visible to the public. Barcelo (2017) is of the view that a link between the users and the transactions made by the individual users can be identified. Biryukov et al. (2014) has presented a method to link user’s pseudonyms to the IP address of the user even when the users are behind a firewall or even behind the network address translation which can help in reaching the origin of a transaction. Hjalmarsson et al. (2018) has presented an e-voting framework that is yet in progress and has not tested against the claims that were made about increasing the security and reducing the cost of conducting elections. Alonso et al. (2018) have argued that the e-voting initiatives are present, but the developed systems are very few. The author has also mentioned how social and cultural limitations can affect e-voting initiatives. Zhang et al. (2018) in their work, has discussed different applications based on blockchain.

The private or the consortium blockchain which is maintained by an organization, for example, the election commission of the country, has its issue that requires a resolution strategy in place. In the private blockchain, only the eligible nodes can see the details of the votes and transactions and the voting process does not remain visible to the voters. This makes the voting process less transparent as compared to paper-based voting.

Another threat in the private blockchain being used for voting is that the authority hosting the private blockchain may have access to the data and it can be observed in anticipation of the results while the voters, in general, do not have significant knowledge of the proceedings. This causes a situation that compromises the level playing field for all the parties as some parties having anticipated knowledge may be in a better decision-making position. Although electronic voting is anticipated to have a great future, yet the past is not that glorious. In some countries, e-voting is not an option while few are in the process to eliminate the security, verifiability, and anonymity concerns. Some issues require immensely deep consideration by the legislatures, technologists, civil society, and the people, (Zhang, 2018).

African elections have long been marred with rigging and violence, Chan S. (2019). To avert the problem, it is significant to establish the route course. Satoshi Nakamoto who was one individual behind Bitcoin illustrated how the technology of blockchain had a linked structure that is peer-to-peer hence solving the challenge of the maintenance of transactions’ order as well as avoiding the problem of double-spending (Gabison, 2016). Bitcoin usually orders the transactions then groups them in some inhibited-size organization known as ‘block’ that shares a similar timestamp. According to Dennis & Owen (2015), the networks’ nodes link blocks chronologically, where each block contains the previous blocks’ harsh to develop a blockchain. In this regard, the structure of blockchain manages to have a stout and clear transactions registry. As a result, technology is increasingly becoming instrumental (Zhao, Fan & Yan, 2016). As such, researchers and scholars are now concerned with this technology. According to Chen et al. (2018), developers as well as researchers are now aware of the capacity of blockchain and explore several applications in multiple segments. In the African election environment, blockchain could help immensely. For many years, e-voting remains one of the most considerable, creations and promising creations that could augment the electoral process, reduce elections’ costs, and develop more democracies that are robust (Autade et al., 2012). The same is significantly needed in the African voting process because the existing system seems to augment rigging, where democracy keeps being violated. The Ballot-box system currently in Africa is a method where the voters are issued with a ballot box to tick their favourite candidate. The system has proven inadequate in the maintenance of voters’ trust, rigging prevention, and upholding trust among the voters. Blockchain prevents this because its peer-peer, decentralized, open-source, and remains a structure that can be verified independently (Hsiao et al., 2018, Kujbas, 2017). Such a system is integral in the prevention of rigging and restoring confidence among the African votopen-sources, it is an open-source where verification is possible, meaning that rigging will be significantly reduced averting post-election violence. Importantly, the blockchain system adheres to the regulations of a nation. This further builds on voters’ trust and confidence, while making blockchain an effective system for use. Thus, the anticipated turnout of voters will be high and rigging significantly averted.

Furthermore, centralized public and private entities as well as government bodies like the electoral commissions of Africa gather large volumes of sensitive personal data. Politou, Alepis, & Patsakis posit that the gap for data processing regulation still exists (2018). Blockchain presents an opportunity to enhance big data security (Yue et al., 2017, Abdullah, Hakanson, & Moradian, 2017, Karafiloski & Mishev, 2017). Besides, it is scalable when merged with efficient systems of storage for data mining (Zhao et al., 2017). In this regard, security and privacy-centred applications, which depend on blockchain exist in multiple works of literature (Chanson et al., 2017, Dorri et al., 2017, Anjum, Sporny, & Sill, 2017). Chang & Svetinovic assert that Namecoin is some open-source blockchain, which implements a Domain Name System version (DNS) that remains decentralized (2016). The fundamental advantages of a decentralized DNS entail resistance, privacy, censorship, and security. Also, Alexandria which was the first application built on Open Index Protocol (OIP) remains some open blockchain source providing decentralized as well as secure media system that allows freedom when it comes to speech (Swan, 2015). The elections in Africa require these benefits as data security accords the voter confidence and protection from harm in some instances. Blockchain provides the requirements for the protection of individual data preventing information manipulation and rigging. Importantly, the systems use digital services for identity that can confirm the identities of an individual like aliases, enhancing anonymity as well as security in a model for standard verification (Swan, 2015, Heilman, Baldimtsi, & Goldberg, 2017). The African election system requires a system where a voter is anonymous for security reasons. In this regard, the use of blockchain presents this prospect, which is still not possible with the current system.

Blockchain applies in enhancing effectiveness and security. In this light, it can enhance reliability as well as security in distributed networks via software and hardware solutions (Min, 2019). For example, SIRIN LABS created the initial blockchain grounded smartphone with the capability to provide secure, fast, and free transactions (Kadena, n.d). BitAv remains an antimalware developed to use distributed blockchain consensus and feedforward scanning (Daneshgar, Sianaki, & Guruwacharya, 2019). There have been people that have implemented a blockchain public infrastructure key, which augments security against hazardous attacks or single failures (Bozic, Pujolle, & Secci, 2016). Liag et al. recommend the application of some kind of distributed protection structures based on blockchain to boost systems against the advent of cyber-attacks (2018). The electoral commissions of Africa have countries that complained of cyber-attacks. Besides, the current system causes delays and a lot of physical labour in counting. Thus, the credibility could be greatly questioned due to the fatigue and bias of workers in the electoral commission. However, blockchain provides a fast, reliable, and secure way to carry on elections where the fatigue of human beings will be significantly reduced and credibility upheld.

Tosh et al. describe the susceptibility of the blockchain cloud but points out that it enables the justification of data (2017). Blockchain also applies in verification, enabling, authenticating, and security sharing in the networks of cognitive radio (Fisher & Sanchez, 2016). Multiple processes exist to enhance blockchain technology privacy. In this regard, blockchain assures the security and privacy of the voter and builds confidence all the while enhancing effectiveness in the electoral process. To uphold democracy and effective power transfer, citizens need to be confident with the electoral process as well as their data. Blockchain comprehensively eradicates the challenges experienced in the Ballot-box method.

On the other hand, blockchain technology enhances data management, which remains vital to the electoral commission. The application, as well as implementations of blockchain technology, has enhanced the management of data (Cheng et al., 2017). This system has defaulted to the auditable data because all the operations of the system can be verified (Shafagh et al., 2017). Blockchain is an efficient, verifiable, and secure way for data management. Fridgen assesses a prototype of blockchain for cross-organizational management of the workflow (2018). The results encourage demonstrating the capacity for blockchain to enhance cross-organizational management of the workflow. On the other hand, Hawk in the blockchain is a groundwork that minimizes or avoids multiple disclosures thus enhancing privacy (Tian, 2016). Blockchain disrupts the segment of human resources because it enhances data storage as well as the secure distribution of data, a decentralized block-chain grounded solution suffices for metadata because it supports chief functions (Garcia-Barriocanal, Sanchez-Alonso, & Sicilla, 2017). Karafiloski & Mishev insist on the significance of trust when it comes to large data segments and gives a big information model for sharing founded on blockchain technology to enhance safety in data circulation (2017). Do and Ng present some system, which enables distributed and secure data management via the application of keyword search and cryptographic primitives (2017). Additionally, the owner of data can enable read and search permission of the information to third parties. Conversely, Searchain is a means, which searches for keywords and is grounded on the blockchain (Ferrag et al., 2017). Searchain enhances effective oblivious search when faced with a keyword that is stored in a decentralized area. Extra examples are contained in Azaria et al., 2016 where systems, which enable the distribution of decentralized and sensitive data are clearly illustrated. There are other secure approaches for data sharing (Hull, 2017). Importantly, authentication instruments and access control may also get applied for ensuring security and privacy in the distribution of data (Kalra et al., 2017). Cloud-based effective, as well as decentralized solutions using blockchain, are available (Shetty et al., 2017). Such systems act to overcome the challenges experienced in the event of big data (Karafiloski & Mishev, 2017). An election entails big data and blockchain can overcome the problems associated with large amounts of data. In this regard, it is prudent for African countries to adopt a blockchain system in their elections.

Finally, blockchain presents a sustainable solution to the problems experienced in African elections. Multiple organizations in the contemporary world are not only excited about the technology of blockchain but also the latent to solve real problems as well as transform digitally (Brandon, 2016). Still, from a data management insight, multiple specialists in IT fail to comprehend the core reasons for applying blockchain in each project. For example, where no data requires storage, blockchain does not prove significant nor does it outdo present systems. In a similar lens, if a sole writer gets foreseen in a particular system, blockchain does not offer extra guarantees in comparison to a database that is regular. Furthermore, blockchain becomes significant in instances of transactions from a person who is not trusted or for the permanent historical record. For example, blockchain becomes viable in the instance where several mistrusting bodies need to interact, changing a systems’ state. In this regard, it is essential to examine the usability of blockchain before advocating it in the electoral system of Africa. Currently, minor evaluation criteria establish the suitability of using blockchain. Conversely, there are suggestions for an examination criterion in particular areas like identity management, supply chain, and also the stock market. There is a provision for an assessment of distinct types of blockchain like the permissionless and permissioned as well as creates a methodological context that identifies blockchain suitability in multiple domains. Databases exist in a mutable nature in which some individuals may access, update or even insert data. The parties normally have distinct roles but well-known identity-wise. Nonetheless, a user may be accorded the power to comprehensively alter the organization as well as the content of hosted data. This research will establish the applicability of blockchain technology. In this regard, this research intends to establish the latent that blockchain contains as opposed to other database methods as well as the ballot-box being used in Africa currently. The research seeks to establish that blockchain will suffice in an African electoral system because it creates trust, verifiability, and enhances cost reduction as well as security. As such, blockchain presents a sustainable solution to the problem of the current electoral system in Africa. First, the system does not use trusted third parties like most databases. As such, it eliminates manipulation that may arise on third parties during African elections and builds on content verification as well as effectiveness. Blockchain also applies in instances where tracking is required since no data gets erased or when there is a need for privacy and robust security in decentralized systems to prevail over centralized ones in security (Zyskind et al., 2015). In maintenance issues, blockchain does not need hosting. As such, it presents an open opportunity for African electoral bodies to adopt considering the state of the economies of most African nations. Also, the system is sustainable and will be applied for a long since it keeps developing.

Polling Process

The electronic voting system is executed in a way that it deploys many individuals at different levels. In order to develop an effective block creation system, it is important to understand the actual execution on the ground. In the conduct of the elections, the electoral commission and the National Registration Bureau (NRB) have a big role to play. The National Registration Bureau (NRB) is responsible for collecting biometric and biographic information and issuing National Identity Cards. The NRB also operates the Automated Fingerprint Identification System that checks for duplicate or multiple registrations. It is responsible for the registration and issuance of identity documents to the citizens. The NRB is responsible to ensure that each citizen of the country has a record available and that the biometrics of each individual is also available. The biometric authentication is used in the voter’s authentication on the polling day. The electoral commission is responsible for making the electoral lists available which are verifiable from the base records. The authenticated voters can vote according to the provision provided to them and the usage of technology is made to get the vote recorded and tabulated accordingly. It is also the responsibility of the electoral commission to declare the results when polling station and constituency tabulation have been made.

In this system, we consider Kenya as a case study. In Kenya, the national assembly has 210 direct national seat elections. For the purpose of polling, each constituency is divided into the number of polling stations that may vary based on the number of voters in the area (normally there is one polling station for 1,000 voters). Each polling station is administered by the presiding officer who is assisted by an assistant and some staff. The responsibilities are designated to each staff member for authentication of the voters and helping him to cast the vote without fear or influence.

This paper provides a solution that is based on the electronic voting machines and biometric authentication of the voter before he can cast the vote. The casting of a vote is a procedural step that includes the following.

Hashing, Proofs, and Blockchain Types

The past events in human life are timestamped and linked with each other. They can neither be reversed nor be duplicated. Also, the correctness of these events is known by many individuals who can verify the information as and when needed. This provides the idea of the blockchain where the irreversible, distributed, public ledger is formed to hold blocks of data. The events can be represented as a block of information that is linked chronologically to form an invisible blockchain of the events in our life. The idea of a computational blockchain is no more different. The blockchain is an open and distributed ledger that can be seen by anybody and can be updated by anybody depending on the conditions of the blockchain. The concept revolves around making the trust-oriented system where the records cannot be altered and the exclusion is not unilateral.

Types of Blockchain

Blockchain has three different types, i.e., public blockchain, private blockchain, and consortium blockchain. Bitcoin and Ethereum are examples of the public blockchain, anyone and from anywhere can join them and can get relieved at the time of his will. This is proofed by the complex mathematical functions. The private blockchain is the internal-public ledger of the company and the joining on that blockchain is granted by the company owning that blockchain. The block construction and mining speed are far better in the private blockchain as compared to the public blockchain due to the limited nodes. The consortium blockchain however exists among the companies or groups of companies and instead of the consensus the principles of memberships are designated to govern the blockchain transactions more effectively.

Block is the primary component of the blockchain. A block consists of the header and the body, the body of the block contains the transactions being written to the system. The header of the block contains the information about the block that includes previous hash, nonce value and difficulty, and the timestamp of the block and the transactions, (Chang et al 2016). The length of the block is variable and deemed to have been among1 to 8 MB of size. The header of the block uniquely identifies the block to be placed.

Hashing in Blockchain technology

Hashing is the process of changing the arbitrary and variable size input to a fixed size output. Hashing in blockchain refers to the process of having an input item of whatever length reflecting an output item of a fixed length. If we take the example of blockchain use in cryptocurrencies, transactions of varying lengths are run through a given hashing algorithm, and all give an output that is of a fixed length. Different functions perform hashing at a different level.

Hashing Algorithms

The MD5 algorithm is widely used for hashing purposes and it provides a 128 nit or 32 symbols long hash value. MD5 is the latest algorithm in the series while before that Md2, Md3, and Md4 also existed, (Liang, G.et al 2018). The algorithm was designed to be used as a cryptographic hashing algorithm but it faces some problems that reduce the production of the unique hash value and hence it faces some vulnerabilities. Race Integrity Primitive Evaluation Message Digest (RIPEMD) is a family of hash functions developed by Hans Dobbertin in 1996. This algorithm was designed to replace the MD5 as a more secure alternative. It has few variations that have emerged over time including RIPEMD-128, RIPEMD-160, RIPEMD256, and RIPEMD-320.

SHA (Secure Hashing Algorithm) is another cryptographic hash function that yields a 160-bit hash value consisting of 40 hexadecimal characters. The algorithm could not resist the collusion attacks against it and its usage has declined after 2005. In the time after 2005, several new algorithms have also been proposed, including SHA 3, and SHA 256. The SHA 2 set of algorithms is designed by the US’s Nation Security Agency. SHA 256 and SHA 512 are new hash functions that do not have collusion problems and are deemed secure otherwise, at least as yet. Keccak is a family of algorithms designed by Guido Bertoni, Joan Daemen, Michaël Peters. The flexibility of the algorithm, in contrast to its other counterparts, is that it accepts any length of input and yields an arbitrary length of the output, while all other algorithms produce a fixed-length output.

Concept of Proofs in blockchain technology

Proof of Work

The concept of the proof of work deals with the mining or creation of the blocks in such a way that it can be proved that a significant effort has been made for the resolution of the mathematical problem introduced for the creation of a block in the blockchain (Silhavy, 2010). The mathematical complexity is increased on the creation of every new block so make the creation of the block complex and a rewarding scenario. The increasing complexity is introduced with the help of the hash functions, marckle trees, and the nonce value.

Proof of Stake

The concept of the proof of stake revolves around the identification of the stakes in the blockchain (Hjalmarsson, 2018). The holders of assets are subject to have more priority in the creation of the blocks. The likelihood that only a few creators of the blocks may control the entire blockchain by virtue of the assets that they have, can’t be ignored. This concept is applicable in the consortium blockchain or the private blockchain where the holding companies may need administrative access to the blockchain.

Proof of Burn

The proof of burn deals with the burning of the coins that are gained over some time (Alonso, 2018). This burning process works as fuel for the creation of new blocks. This proof of burn concept ensures that the individuals don’t become powerful enough by increasing their stakes in the network. The burn process is recorded by sending the coins/proof of work to an arbitrary address, that may be designated by the network itself.

The above-mentioned proofs exist well in the literature and they are being practised well in bitcoin mining. The application of blockchain, however, differs in its application in other areas and the proofs that we mentioned in this section may not be applicable in actual but an adjustment may be sought in implementation based on the nature of the application itself. How much change? The answer to the question is governed by the nature of the application area where the blockchain method is to be applied.

In this paper, we are addressing the application of the blockchain in trustworthy electronic voting, and it is identified that the existing blockchain may need some adjustments because of the following reasons:

Creation of Block

The block creation in the electoral process is a basic entity and the voters can’t record their vote if the block is not created. It is therefore vital that the blocks are created without solving the mathematical puzzles to form the proof of work. Since it will be a consortium blockchain, the proof of stake will not be relevant and likewise, the proof of burn is not applicable as a created block will be held by one individual.

Sealing of Blocks

The voters can vote and the transactions are recorded in the blocks, by the time the polling time ends, the blocks are required to be sealed by the hash functions and using the Merkle tree and nonce function. The sealing concept is not present in the existing concepts.

Polling Time

Since the voting process continues for 8–10 hours, it is vital that the blocks can be created, sealed, and secured at this time. As the proof of work, proof of stake, and proof of burn can only be applied after a very lengthy process, their application on the trustworthy electronic voting is not that suitable.

Result Delay

Once the polling process is complete and the results have been announced, there will be no further need for continuing the mining or block creation activity. Since the proof of work and proof of stake, algorithms keep on repeating themselves recursively, use (waste) a lot of computational power over time. The proposed system does not use that many resources and hence remains cost, time, and power effective.

Considering the limitations of the existing algorithms, an algorithm must be developed that can deal with the identified issue and overcomes the limitations of the existing algorithms when they are applied to the area of trustworthy electronic voting.

Summary

The recurring themes discovered in the literature are the potential, security, privacy, prevention of rigging, and development of trust among the voters. Besides, the effectiveness of blockchain remains an instrumental consideration for all African countries if electoral violence is to end in the continent. Additionally, blockchain technology remains sustainable because of the unique features that make it stand out. Although multiple works of literature exist on the significance of blockchain technology, few have pointed on some limitations of the system on electoral systems, as well as educated fully on the entire use of blockchain in African elections. This literature gap in blockchain technology left behind some questions, which need to be answered in this research:

(a) What would the initial elections using blockchain unfold in Africa? (b) How would the first election be carried out? (c) What potential limitations does the use of blockchain in African elections face? Addressing the questions remains integral to the creation of a more comprehensive picture of blockchain technology in the African nations’ elections.

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

Political realness is a reason for political foundations and the decisions – about laws, game plans, rules, and opportunities for political office – made inside them. When interpreted unmistakably, realness suggests people’s feelings about the political position and, on a couple of occasions, political responsibilities (Peter, 2017). Max Weber, a setup humanist, set forward a powerful record of realness that dodges any regard to regularizing guidelines. As demonstrated by Weber, a political framework is certifiable if individuals have certain feelings or certainty worried about that framework (Peter, 2017). Allen Buchanan (2002, pp. 689-690), regardless, battles that affiliation has political legitimacy simply if it is morally supported in rehearsing political power. Instead of Weber’s connecting with the point of view on political credibility, the regularizing thought of political legitimacy implies to some benchmark of appropriateness or backing of political force (the alternative to consent) and responsibility – this standard can be, notwithstanding different things, custom, or the coordination by the political authority of occupants’ activities towards some ordinary interest (Rothstein, 2009). On one view, held by two well-known scientists – John Rawls and Ripstein – for example, credibility implies the help of the coercive political position. Whether or not a political body (like a state) is valid and regardless of whether inhabitants have political responsibilities towards it depends, as shown by this view, on whether the coercive political power that the state rehearses is reasonable (Peter, 2017).

As demonstrated by a for the most part held elective view, genuineness is associated with the guard of political power. This view suggests that political bodies, for instance, states may be convincing, or de facto, trained professionals, without on a very essential level being certifiable. They ensure the alternative to control and to take responsibilities to be clung to, and as long as these cases are met with sufficient detached assent, they are conclusive. The certifiable situation, in this view, contrasts from just suitable or acknowledged master in that it truly holds the alternative to run and makes political responsibilities to individuals (Peter, 2017). Concerning certain viewpoints, even real power isn’t satisfactory to make political responsibilities to occupants of a particular state. This thought, propounded by Ronald Dworkin, an American researcher, is that a political position (like a state) may be permitted to issue chooses and rules that inhabitants are not dedicated to go along. Considering a viewpoint of this sort, some have suggested that real political force simply prompts political responsibilities in case extra regularizing conditions are met (Peter, 2017).

To choose the nexus between political validity and agreement, political realness needs to be reviewed from an objective, yet also from an enthusiastic estimation. For amicability to be achieved, certifiable governments ought to consequently be accepted as legitimate. An ordinary view on credibility is that it lays on the exhibit of free just like it’s everything except a feasible sort of clarification of the interests of the bigger part. Regardless, as Rothstein (2009) shows using the instance of Sweden, the pervasive estimation may meander from the long stretch of interest and evaluation of people. In different African frameworks, this ‘theoretical’ validity seems to come from the comparability of pioneers to social principles. The photos of father, family, and food overpower African political talk: African pioneers are seen as fathers, who are thusly expected to fulfil the components of paternal figures in African social orders:

pioneers, like dads, are needed to be providers, nourishers, and protectors, who oblige their adolescents’ material thriving – hints of the comparison can be found in Kenyan political talk (Ghai, 2017);
fathers need to allow their youngsters to grow up and ultimately to succeed them in power;
while the dad may ‘eat’, and even eat well, limits are put on the whole he ought to burn-through; and
the upsides of ladies may not be mishandled and political pioneers should energetically hear their voice and recognize counsel from them, as fathers and life accomplices do from their little girls and life accomplices (Schatzberg, 1993, pp. 450-455).

In Kenya, pioneers have failed to fulfil these positions – this has achieved a shortfall of political credibility (Schatzberg, 1993; Ghai, 2017). Fulfilment of these positions would positively impact genuine political pioneers as their subjects would feel that they had been managed decently.

Electoral Security through Blockchain Technology

Dimitri (2017) characterizes a blockchain as a kind of data set that stores various records in a block (like examining them onto a solitary piece of paper). The squares are connected through cryptographic marks. This accordingly permits the chains to fill in as a record which can then, at that point be imparted to people with suitable consents. The record’s precision is authenticated in different manners known as an agreement, which works on the exactness of the data. A blockchain can either be public or private. Public blockchains offer admittance to all clients. This access, be that as it may, can be one of two: a) read, or b) compose authorizations. Private blockchains, on the other hand, give access only to the recorded authorizations confided in hotspots for the motivations behind security and security. Notwithstanding the community, the information in the squares is scrambled with a key. Blockchain innovation involves two crucial portions: exchanges and squares. Exchanges are activities set off by the client while blocks are an assortment of the information recording the exchanges and progress with metadata like the right grouping and timestamp of creation. (Miraz and Ali, 2018). Blockchain strategies for working are extremely viable. To clarify in a pertinent manner, the political race cycle will do the trick. A citizen places in their vote in the voting form (this is the exchange) what’s more, it should be remembered for a current chain after approval. The approval is finished by the members in the blockchain environment by applying a particular calculation. The votes are then, at that point packaged up into a gathering (as per a surveying station or applicant) known as a square. This new square is from that point imparted to every partaking gathering and annexed to the existing chain of squares in the computerized blockchain record.

Public Key Cryptography

In this part, we will lay out some essential ideas driving blockchain innovation, fundamentally, starting from public-key cryptography.

Source: Adiputra, C. K., Hjort, R., & Sato, H. (2018)

Fig. 1. Twofold Envelope—a stamped and encoded casting ballot structure. Where: PE is the public key of the political race, and SV is the puzzling key of the voter.

In apparent e-anticipating, a democratic structure framework, topsy turvy cryptography is truly used to de-/encode or sign a popularity-based design [17, Social occasion. 3.1], utilizing frameworks, for example, RSA [19]. With public-key encryption, the two sections in correspondence can keep public and hidden key sets. The public key of every friendly event might be known by everybody, in any case, the private key should be kept a mystery. Social event 1 may scramble a request for Get-together 2 utilizing Get-together 2’s public key, which makes a ciphertext that just Gathering 2 can unravel. Get-together 1 can additionally sign any message utilizing their private key so that Party 2 (or some other individual tuning in) can watch that the message is in fact from that social event 1. A message sent from a citizen to the political race worker. The majority rule structure is blended political decision’s public key into a ciphertext, which gets one “envelope”. After the inhabitant signs the inward envelope with their private key it’s anything but’s a “twofold envelope” which can be conveyed off the political decision worker.

We join twofold envelope encryption and blockchain advancement to execute our structure. The figure contains 3 sides: the resident’s side, the constituent reward’s side, and the blockchain network. Regardless, we need to do several things for our system to work suitably. Exactly when the political race is precisely set up, the voter’s PC or contraption can be trusted. There is an untouchable, constituent commission, that can be trusted to assemble a political race. Not all trustees of the political choice are compromised. An affirmation of work blockchain can work fittingly if under portion of the computational resources in the organization are endeavouring to cheat by changing the blockchain in a malignant way.

Source: Adiputra, C. K., Hjort, R., & Sato, H. (2018)

Fig. 2. A blockchain-based electronic voting system

Number 0 to number 4 in Fig. 2 show plans needed for the political race. Close to the beginning, the choosing commission (or another political race boss) makes a critical pair for the political race (PE; SE) which later is used for encoding and unscrambling messages of voters. Then, every voter needs to make a key pair. In Fig. 5, (PV X; SV X) shows the crucial pair of voter X. This key pair is along these lines used for denoting the message made by the resident herself. Voters need to enlist their public key PV X to the optional commission for their popularity-based capability using an allotted real ID. The choosing commission then affirms each resident’s ID and registers the relating public key PV X to a public summary, or rejects it if the voter isn’t qualified. It is important that each voter keeps up with their public key secret in this arrangement and simply sends it to the regulating body. After the enrolment finishes, a resident can start making a trade T x that is portrayed in Fig. 2 from no. 5 to 9. As a matter of first importance, a resident makes a message,

which involves a timestamp T s, the resident’s choice location C, and a self-assertive worth R. Timestamp T s shows the time right when a resident cast their vote. The timestamp T s in like manner allows a voter to do different votes, so irrefutably the latest vote is counted. The voter’s choice location C contains any worth that spotlights on the vote-based candidates, e.g., their public keys. A subjective regard R is required to hinder an aggressor to calculate the voter’s essential pair from encoded messages made by the voter herself. Besides, the resident scrambles the made message M using political race public key PE implied as Enc (M; PE). Thirdly, the voter signs the hash of her public key PV X followed by the mixed message Enc (M; PE).

This signifies the above-represented mark. A while later, a citizen can make their exchange T x. An exchange,

contains the resident’s public key PV X, the encoded message Enc (M; PE), and the characteristic of hash, Sign, joining both past data portrayed in (2). At last, the resident can send the trade T x to the blockchain network. Earthmovers in the blockchain network accumulate trades and make blocks. After a square containing a specific number of trades is made and joined to the chain, any resident can watch that the vote is assembled. The voter can keep it together for barely additional squares to be added on top to guarantee that the square containing her trade is inside the longest chain.

This connection continues until the vote-based period wraps up. After the popularity-based period finishes, the optional commission decimates all of the public keys they have on record and releases the political race private key SE, so everyone can start counting votes and affirming the result. An aggressor can’t viably change votes. In any case, the popularity-based message, M is encoded with a twofold incorporate plot. The attacker needs to figure out some approach to unscramble the mixed message, Enc (M; P E) to change it. Then, yet the attacker can interpret it, simply changing the vote and re-scramble it will not make the vote significant. The imprint portrayed in (2) will tell that the vote has been adjusted. Everyone can affirm the imprint by using public key PV X and figure the hash of the public key PV X and its relating encoded message Enc (M; P E) that can be seen from the trade. As such, the attacker in like manner needs to figure out some approach to make the imprint real. Second, changing or disposing of an assembled trade inside a square change the hash of the real square. Consequently, an attacker needs to re-figure all hashes of the following squares which needs extensive computational work.

Source: Adiputra, C. K., Hjort, R., & Sato, H. (2018)

Table 1. Subjective assessment of our proposed framework dependent on e-casting a ballot Standards. Proposed Casting a ballot Framework – copying the Estonian democratic framework: totally satisfied, #: satisfied, 4: part of the way satisfied, not satisfied

Blockchain Technology Important Security Features

Decentralization

Decentralization alludes to the cycles of information check, stockpiling, support, and transmission on the blockchain which depend on a dispersed framework structure (Chen, 2018). The trust is set up through numerical strategies rather than brought together methods. This implies that no single element holds total force or authority over the blockchain framework and represents a strong obstruction to discretionary gear

Hashing

A hash is the one-of-a-kind computerized finger impression that is connected to a square in a particular chain (Miraz and Ali, 2018). The framework takes in the information that enters the squares and converts it’s anything but an organization that is tremendous by people. Just an individual with the right key can open the square’s content. This delivers the framework impermeable to hacking methods

Anonymity

On the blockchain, the measure of data set forward in plain view can be controlled at the advancement phase of the framework. Different information things can be disguised like the elector’s subtleties, while other data, for example, the vote cast, can stay noticeable. This namelessness implanted in the plan is executed utilizing a method called Private Exchanges (Halpin and Piekarska, 2017).

Transparency

Rules are set on how the blockchain works with its current circumstance. This data on a few exchanges are then put away in an information base that is open admittance to everybody (Bruyn, 2017). This makes the check of believability straightforward. The exchanges are moreover irreversible. In case of any adjustment to the squares, the inconsistencies can be identified and introduced under the steady gaze of the court as proof in political decision petitions

Traceability

Every one of the exchanges is recorded in a log. This implies that a path is left of each activity that has happened inside the blockchain. This follows limits examples of extortion and unlawful change of the information that was recently put away. In case of modification by an illicit member, the advanced follow can be trailed by computerized measurable specialists to the wellspring of the hack.

Plan for Interview

A survey was utilized for this exploration. It permitted the namelessness of the members and be passed on through email or postal support of expected members. It was self-managed where the respondents read the inquiries and gave answers in a like manner. Besides, it was a simple and quick method of gathering information from a wide scope of individuals spread across various settlements explicitly as the country. The expected members were overall spread. The methodology empowered the simple conveyance of surveys to a huge number of individuals before the physical meeting. To explore the expected commitment of blockchain innovation in casting a ballot framework to harmony designing, a subjective report was directed with specialists on international relations and blockchain. Respondents were met in 17 semi-organized meetings in January and February 2021, utilizing the idea of information immersion. The meetings endured somewhere in the range of 40 and 55 min. The study took place in Nairobi County eight categories of interviewees were sampled and interviewed.

Number of educated voters: 8
Number of uneducated voters: 8
Number of Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) officials: 1

The thought behind the decision: old enough reach was that the members would have encountered at least one Kenyan general election since the individual was conceived. Likewise, at these age ranges, they are viewed as grown-ups who could eagerly take an interest in the exploration of the subject and offer input independently. The members were arbitrarily chosen from residents of Kenya living within Nairobi and its environs, thus the alternative for an area in the segment data part of the survey. The exploration tried not to connect as it were the resident’s occupant in the country to wipe out predispositions of assessment and to have more extensive information sources concerning the nation’s accepted procedures. Also, these members cut across all orders, for example, finance managers, public workers, and understudies among others. Their insight into the utilization of innovation was profoundly thought of, as it would empower them to be unbiased as they would like to think. The poll before physical correspondence was made with the help of a google doc form, distributed to a large pool to pinpoint those whom we were to individually meet afterwards. As such, we were able to create a notion of trust and before-hand knowledge to the subject of discussion to answer from a point of knowledge and to receive accurate, well-thought answers from correspondents.

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

The Kenyan Political Context

The Autonomous Constituent and Limits Commission (IEBC) is a free administrative office that was established in 2011 by the Constitution of Kenya. Article 88 of the Constitution of Kenya sets up the Autonomous Constituent and Limits Commission (IEBC) as the body ordered to lead and regulate decisions and referenda in Kenya (Cheeseman et al., 2019). The Commission is liable for holding and overseeing choices and races to any elective body or office set up by the Constitution, and some other races as endorsed by a Demonstration of Parliament. It was made in an arrangement of the 2010 constitution and the Free Discretionary and Limits Commission Act. The orders of IEBC incorporates; the nonstop enlistment of citizens and amendment of the voter’s roll, the delimitation of supporters and wards, the guideline of ideological groups measure, the settlement of discretionary questions, the enlistment of possibility for races, citizen schooling, the help of the perception, checking and assessment of decisions, the guideline of cash spent by an up-and-comer or gathering in regard of any survey, the improvement of a set of accepted rules for applicants and gatherings, the checking of consistency with enactment on a selection of up-and-comers by parties (Nespeca, Meesters, Comes, Boersma and Tomaszewski, 2018). The use of innovation in the 2017 Kenya electing measures was directed by Segment 44 of the Races Demonstration of 2011. Under Segment 44 (1) of the demonstration, the Autonomous Constituent and Limits Commission (IEBC) procured “an incorporated electronic constituent framework,” alluded to as the Kenya Coordinated Races the Executives Framework (KIEMS). KIEMS was intended to coordinate the current biometric citizen enrolment (BVR), the biometric elector recognizable proof (EVI), the electronic outcomes transmission (RTS), and the competitor enlistment frameworks (CRMS). Three sub-frameworks (CRMS, EVI, and RTS) were important for the 2017 acquisition, while the BVR framework is the thing that the IEBC utilized during the 2013 constituent cycle. The bio-information data of the relative multitude of enrolled electors were stacked onto the incorporated framework, with biometric subtleties of explicit citizens limited to surveying stations in which they are enrolled.

Core Values for the Electing Framework in Kenya

The protected and lawful request in Kenya necessitates that the discretionary framework is subject to certain cross-cutting standards. Such standards can give general and target rules as the major parts in the electing framework make laws, rules, guidelines, and managerial choices or rules. The said standards are as follows:

The constituent framework should conform to the rule of opportunity for residents to practice their political rights spelt out in article 38 and examined previously.
The electing framework should follow the rule that not more than 66% of individuals from elective public bodies will be of something very similar sex.
The electing framework should follow the rule of the reasonable portrayal of people with inabilities.
The constituent framework should agree with the standard of general testimonial in light of the desire for reasonable portrayal and correspondence to cast a ballot.

The electing framework should consent to the rule of free and reasonable races that bear the accompanying qualities:

By secret polling form;
Liberated from brutality, terrorizing, ill-advised influence, or debasement;
Led by an autonomous body;
Straightforward; and
Controlled in an unbiased, nonpartisan, efficient, exact, and responsible way.

Voter Registration

The Constitution of Kenya 2010 commits Parliament to sanction enactment to make two significant arrangements that identify with an enrolment of residents as electors, that is,

Arrangement for the constant enrolment of residents as voters.
The reformist enrolment of residents dwelling outside Kenya and the reformist acknowledgement of their right to vote.

In fulfilment of the above commitment Parliament has authorized the Decisions Act which accommodates a Chief register of citizens, to be assembled and kept up with by the Autonomous Electing and Limits Commission that contains the following sub-writers:

A survey registers regarding each surveying station
A ward register regarding each ward
A voting public register in regard of every electorate
A district registers regarding each province and
A register of electors living in external Kenya.

Source:

Fig. 1. Provinces in Kenya

The Decisions Act likewise requires the enlistment of electors and the correction of the register of electors to be done consistently with just three special cases, that is;

In the event of an overall political race or a recurrent official political decision where, no
Clear champ arose out of the first round of the overall political race, the enrolment of citizens and modification of the register of electors will not be done between the date of initiation of the ninety days preceding the political decision and the date of such political decision.
On account of a by-political decision, the enrolment of citizens and correction of the register of electors will not be completed between the date of the presentation of the opportunity of the seat concerned and the date of such a by-political decision.
In some other cases, the enlistment of citizens and the modification of the register of electors will not occur between the date of the assertion of the opportunity of the seat concerned and the date of such political decision.

Conduction of the Election

The Constitution of Kenya puts Parliament under an obligation to sanction enactment to accommodate the lead of decisions and referenda and the guideline and efficient oversight of decisions and referenda including the selection of contenders for decisions. The enactment in regard of the above subject is additionally unavoidably needed to pass a few standards, which is, to guarantee that democratic at each political decision is;

Straightforward;
Considers the exceptional requirements of –
People with handicaps
Different people or gatherings with exceptional necessities.

This subject of enactment has been caught by Parliament in the Races Act. As far as a qualification to cast a ballot, just an individual whose name is entered in the register of citizens in a specific surveying station and who creates an identification record is qualified to cast a ballot in that surveying station. The identification record being referred to ought to be the equivalent identification archive that was utilized at the season of enrolment as a citizen. The real lead of decisions by assignment of qualified competitors for races as talked about before in this paper. An official political race is started by the Commission distributing a notification in the Paper just as in the electronic and print media of public flow. Such distribution is made no less than sixty days before the date of the political race for the situation of an overall political decision, and, approximately 21 days, before the date of a political decision in the event of a recurrent official political race following the absence of an unmistakable champ at a general political race, and, upon the office of the president getting empty in any other case. A parliamentary political decision is started by the distributing of notification of the holding of the political decision, just as in the print and electronic media of public flow. Such distribution is made no less than sixty days before the date of the political race on account of an overall political decision, and, in some other case, upon the office of an individual from parliament getting empty and on receipt of a notification given by the separate speaker.

Region lead representative decisions on their part are started by the Commission distributing notification of the holding of the political decision in the Periodical and the electronic and print media of public dissemination. Such distribution is made at least sixty days before the date of the political decision on account of an overall political decision, also, in some other cases, upon the office of the province lead representative getting empty. Area get-together decisions on their part are started by the Commission distributing notification of the holding of the political race in the Newspaper and the electronic and print media of public flow. Such distribution is made at least sixty days before the date of the political race on account of an overall political race, also, in some other cases, upon the office of an individual from the district gathering getting empty. Every one of the notifications endorsed above should be in a recommended structure and should determine the accompanying things:

On account of the multitude of decisions, the assignment date for the applicants as well as the day or days on which the survey will be taken will not be under 21 days after the day specified for the assignment.
On account of parliamentary and region gathering decisions, in expansion to the prior substance, the notification should likewise determine the day whereupon ideological groups will submit party records for purposes of working with the selection of assigned individuals from the two delegate bodies as needed under the Constitution.

Voting

Except for the core values administering the electing cycle recommended in the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, the Races Act doesn’t give the bare essential insights about the democratic cycle has been left to be endorsed by guidelines to be made by the Free Appointive and Limits Commission. Segment 109 of the Races Act enables the Commission to make guidelines to oversee a wide range of regions identifying with the appointive cycle. Among the spaces to be covered by the guidelines are to;

Recommend the spot and way wherein votes might be projected and the development and scaling of polling stations and accommodate the issue of voting form papers to electors;
Accommodate the way wherein, and the individual by whom any inquiry regarding the character of any individual guaranteeing the option to cast a ballot will be decided;
Accommodate the way where a citizen who can’t peruse or compose may cast a ballot or be helped with casting a ballot;
Accommodate the way wherein a citizen with uncommon requirements including an individual with incapacity may cast a ballot or be helped with casting a ballot;
Recommend the method to be continued in the tallying of votes and the conditions in which votes might be dismissed by a returning officer as being invalid;
Endorse the offices to be given during the appointive cycle and in specific, for casting a ballot by electronic machines and the people entitled so to cast a ballot and the conditions in which people may so cast a ballot;
Recommend the technique for advance deciding in favour of exceptional classifications including patients conceded in the clinic, pastoralists, individuals from the military, decisions officers, and different residents of Kenya offering fundamental types of assistance;
Endorse the technique for deciding in favour of residents dwelling outside Kenya;
1. Accommodate the method of presentation of political race results.

Such ability to make guidelines by the Commission is dependent upon various conditions, to be specific;

It is exercisable for the reason and objective of offering impact to the Constitution and the Races Act;
It is restricted to nature and extension specifically specified in the Constitution and the Races Act;
It depends on the overall standards and principles contained in the Constitution and the Decisions Act;
It is exercisable solely after a draft of the proposed guidelines has been endorsed by the Public Gathering, somewhere around a half year going before an overall political race.

At the time of writing this paper, no such guidelines had been proclaimed under the Races Act, 2011. By the instrumentality of the Understandings and General Arrangements Act (Part 2 Laws of Kenya), the guidelines administering every one of the previous topics and proclaimed under the Public Gathering and Official Races Act Cap 7 (presently revoked) remain in power until the new guidelines will be proclaimed.

Resolution of Disputes in the Electoral Process

The electing interaction, by its very nature as a challenge, will undoubtedly be filled with debates. The validity of the appointive cycle, just as the assurance of how free and reasonable the electing interaction has been being very well definable by reference to the components of the debate goal that the cycle sets up. Discretionary debates in Kenya are classified into two; that is, questions previously the statement of political race results and debates after the revelation of electing results. Article 88(4)(e) of the Constitution of Kenya vests in the Autonomous Discretionary, what’s more, Limits Bonus the obligation regarding the settlement of electing questions, including debates identifying with or emerging from assignments yet barring political decision petitions and debates ensuing to the revelation of political decision results. Such debates inside the goal command of the Commission are to be settled within seven days of the housing of the debate with the Commission.51 The prior regardless, where the debate identifies with a forthcoming assignment or political decision, the debate ought to be resolved before the date of the assignment or political race, whichever is applicable.52 Area 109 of the Races Act vests the ability to make certain specified guidelines overseeing various parts of the electing interaction in the Autonomous Discretionary and Limits Commission, subject to endorsement by the Public Gathering in the way and inside the period endorsed by the Races Act, 2011. Among regions guidelines are required to cover is the space of arrangement for objections goal systems and for the way of settlement of constituent questions. These guidelines are yet to be declared. By excellence of the Translations and General Arrangements Act, it follows that the pertinent guidelines under the at this point revoked Public Gathering and Official Decisions Act stay in power for the reason until the new guidelines will be brought into power. In any case, there are sure parts of the constituent debate goal systems that have been accommodated by the Constitution and the resolutions overseeing the appointive cycle in Kenya.

Design of the Research

This investigation embraced an enlightening examination plan. Cooper and Schindler (2008) show that the fundamental highlights of clear that lie in the destinations. On the off chance that the examination is worried about discovering who, what, where, when, or how much, then, at that point the investigation is clear. Illustrative investigations are those to depict wonders related to a subject populace or to assess the extent of individuals that have explicit attributes.

The objective populace, as characterized by Frederic (2010), is a widespread delegate set of the bigger populace, all things considered; the genuine or theoretical arrangement of individuals, occasions, or has a problem with to which an analyst wishes to sum up the discoveries. The available populace, on the other hand, alludes to the populace in research on which the specialists can apply their discoveries (Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill, 2012). The objective populace for this investigation included 16 enlisted citizens in Nairobi and 1 IEBC specialized staff. Table 1 shows the objective populace.

Objective populace	Number
Educated voters	8
Uneducated voters	8
Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) officials	1

Table 1. The objective populace for the study

Orodho and Kombo (2002) notice tests as a restricted and set number of individuals in a populace to be noticed. The separated arbitrary testing procedure was used to test electors from the voting demographics in Nairobi Province, while the Enumeration approach was utilized to gather information from the specialized staffs since their number was reasonable; be that as it may, since the number of inhabitants in enlisted electors in Nairobi Area was viewed as too enormous, the example size for the citizens was decided to utilize the Fisher’s et al. (2007) equation;

Where; n = the wanted example size

Z = standard typical deviation at the necessary certainty level 95% or 1.96

P = Entrepreneurs and chiefs, 0.7238 of the whole populaces of SMEs.

Computation

(The extent without qualities)

D = level of measurable importance (level of freedom = 0.05)

The example size for this investigation was 17 respondents.

Findings of the Research and Analysis

Polls were regulated to a substantial number of respondents who comprised of both enlisted citizens in the Nairobi Area and IEBC authorities in the Nairobi Region. Out of all polls conveyed, some polls were properly filled and returned. Notwithstanding, a portion of the respondents submitted the surveys half-filled, while the others didn’t return them totally notwithstanding a serious follow-up. The reaction rate result is displayed in Table 2. The examination, hence, yielded an 80% reaction rate, which, as indicated by Bailey (2000), was awesome for this examination. Bailey (2000) accepts that a reaction pace of half is satisfactory, while a reaction rate higher than 70% is extraordinary.

Response	Frequency	Percentage
Returned	40	80
Unreturned	10	20
Total	50	100

Table 2. Survey respondents

The greater part (66%) of respondents who partook in this investigation were guys, while 34% were females as displayed in Figure 2.

Fig. 2. Gender spread of Respondents

In light of the outcomes in Figure 3, generally, (42.10%) of the respondents were between the ages of 31- 40 years, 17.30% were between the ages of 26-30 years, 14.40% were matured over 50 years. Additionally, the outcomes show that 13.70% of the respondents were matured between 18-25 years, and as it were 12.50% were matured between 41-50 years. The outcomes infer that the greater part of the enrolled electors in the Nairobi Region are between the ages of 31-40 years. This further infers that this age bunch is all around educated about their privileges to cast a ballot and choose the pioneers they need, this age bunch is further the most influenced by joblessness, and in this manner, and they practice their entitlement to cast a ballot to pick pioneers who will set out work open doors for them. The outcomes additionally infer that those citizens who matured a long time or more were relatively few since they have decided in favour of quite a while and maybe they have not understood the change they have consistently needed thus they at this point don’t have any desire to take part in the workout, subsequently, citizen detachment. Holland (2013) showed that, in 2008 and 2012, more youthful individuals predominantly decided in favour of the Vote based up-and-comer Barack Obama, while more seasoned individuals decided in favour of the conservative applicant John McCain and Glove Romney by significant spaces; more youthful individuals are generally more liberal than more established individuals, and more youthful individuals commonly incline toward extremist up-and-comers over standard applicants contrasted with more established individuals.

Fig. 3. Respondents’ Ages

The outcomes in Figure 4 show that marginally the greater part of the respondents were optional school graduates, 14% showed that their most elevated level of training was school and another 14% demonstrated that their most significant level of schooling was an undergrad. What’s more, the outcomes show that 11.40% of the respondents were postgraduates, while 10.30% demonstrated that the most elevated level of instruction they accomplished was the essential level. The outcomes suggest that the majority of the enlisted citizens in Nairobi Province are auxiliary school graduates.

Fig. 4. Levels of education of respondents

As shown in Figure 5, marginally the greater (nine) part of the respondents had never cast a ballot in Nairobi Province. This was followed by five who had cast a ballot once, one person had participated more than three times, and three noticed that they had partaken only twice in any democratic cycle in an overall political race in Nairobi Province. The outcomes suggest that a large portion of the electors in Nairobi Province have just partaken in one general political race in Nairobi as Kenyan citizens.

Fig. 5. The number of times respondents voted

Candidate Registration System (CRS)

The principal objective of this investigation was to evaluate the significance of the candidate’s enlistment framework (CRS) on the believability of the appointive framework. The expressive measurements for the candidate’s enrolment framework (CRS) are introduced in Table 3. Results show that a larger part of the respondents 96.00% (38.40%+57.60%) were in concurrence with the assertion CRS guarantees the up-and-comers are recognized extraordinarily during decisions, and in this manner, the believability of the political race results is improved. The outcomes moreover show that just 1.40% of the respondents had an alternate assessment on the articulation. The outcome had a mean of 4.513 and a standard deviation of 0.660, suggesting that the greater part of the respondents was in concurrence with the assertion. The discoveries agree with attestation by LWV, Porte, and MAL (2019) that, CRS guarantees that essential information on competitors designated by ideological groups is entered in a configuration that makes it simple for IEBC to check the exactness of the up-and-comer subtleties, consistency, and produce polling form paper evidence; this is accomplished by cross-coordinating with the citizens register and ideological group register. In light of the outcomes, 92.70% of the respondents accepted that CRS guarantees non-enrolled people to compete for any political seat don’t wind up in the voting form, while just 5.90% of the respondents had an opposite assessment on the equivalent. This implies that the vast majority of the respondents concurred with the assertion anyway their reactions were spread about the mean as demonstrated by the standard deviation.

Statement	Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree	Mean	Std. Dev.
CRS ensures the candidates are identified uniquely during elections	0.70 %	0.70 %	2.60 %	38.40%	57.60 %	4.513	0.660
CRS ensures non registered persons to vie for any political seat do not find themselves in the ballot	4.80 %	1.10 %	1.50 %	31.40%	61.30%	4.432	0.959
Early registration of candidates eliminates cases of imposters	1.50%	1.10%	1.50%	40.60%	55.40%	4.472	0.724
CRS ensures the information about the candidates are distributed to the county level early enough and avoid cases of double registration	1.80%	1.10%	0.70%	47.60%	48.70%	4.402	0.738
CRS ensures no candidate is left out of the ballot paper	6.30%	2.60%	4.40%	33.20%	53.50%	4.251	1.090
CRS has helped reduce cases of violence after elections since the information about every candidate is well captured for reference.	5.90%	2.60%	4.10%	34.30%	53.10%	4.262	1.069
Average	4.389	0.873

Table 3. Clear Insights on Up-and-comer’s Enlistment Framework (CRS)

The outcomes further show that the larger part (96.00%) of the respondents were of the assessment that early enrolment of applicants kills instances of frauds, and this, as indicated by them makes a difference in resolving the issue of the validity of the discretionary body. Be that as it may, 2.60% of the respondents held an alternate assessment; they accepted early enlistment of up-and-comers proved unable to dispense with instances of shams. The reactions had (M=4.472, standard deviation (Std. Dev). Dv=0.724), showing that most of the respondents were in concurrence with the assertion. Plus, as displayed, 96.30% of the respondents were believing that CRS guarantees the data about the up-and-comers are dispersed to the region level early enough and stay away from instances of twofold enrolment, 2.90% of the respondents accepted something else. showing that a larger part of the respondents concurred with the explanation that CRS guarantees the data about the competitors is dispersed to the province level early enough and keep away from instances of twofold enrolment. Essentially, the outcomes show that a larger part (86.70%) of the respondents concurred that with the proclamation that CRS guarantees no applicant is avoided concerning the polling form paper; nonetheless, 8.90% were holders of an opposite assessment in regards to a similar assertion. The reactions had (M=4.25, standard deviation (Std. Dev). Dev. =1.090) showing that the vast majority of the respondents were in concurrence with the assertion although the reactions fluctuated. At last, the outcomes show that a greater part (87.40%) of the respondents accepted that CRS had decreased instances of brutality after races since the data about each applicant is all around caught for reference, while 8.50% felt it had not. The reaction had (M=4.303 standard deviation (Std. Dev). Dev. =1.077). The outcomes show that a large portion of the respondents concurred with the assertion, however, the reactions were shifted. In general, the outcomes had a normal mean and standard deviation of 4.389 and 0.873 individually, showing that the vast majority of the respondents concurred with the assertion, yet the reactions were changed. The outcomes are predictable with the end made by Jones, McAllister, and Gow (2018) that, it is acceptable practice to guarantee that the legitimate structure indicates when, how, and where enlistment strategies should be attempted, what the prerequisites for enlistment are, and how the confirmation of enrolment will happen.

Results Transmission System (RTS)

The second unbiased of this examination was to assess the outcome of the results transmission framework (RTS) on the validity of the Appointive Framework. The elucidating measurements results on transmission framework (RTS) are introduced in Table 4.2. Results in Table 4 show that a larger part of the respondents 94.90% (39.10%+56.80%) were in concurrence with the assertion RTS had presented straightforwardness in the survey results thus the believability of the political race results had been improved by the electing body IEBC. The outcomes additionally show that 1.40% of the respondents did not concur with the assertion. The outcome had a mean of 4.506 and a standard deviation of 0.660, showing that a large portion of the respondents was in concurrence with the assertion. The outcome is steady with what Thakur (2015) found that, with paper-based cycles, gathering and computing results from a large number of surveying stations country-wide is a delayed part measure; be that as it may, with computerized innovation, results can be sent electronically (for instance, over the web or by cell phone) and totalled by a computer, permitting essentially starter results to be reported rapidly henceforth upgrading straightforwardness in the political decision. Additionally, given the outcomes, 93.00% of the respondents accepted that RTS guarantees quicker transmission of survey results diminishing odds of control, while just 5.50% of the respondents conflicted. The outcomes had (M=4.376, standard deviation (Std. Dev =0.930). This suggests that the majority of the respondents concurred with the assertion anyway their reactions were spread about the mean as shown by the standard deviation.

Statement	Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree	Mean	Std. Dev
RTS has introduced transparency in the poll results	0.70%	0.70%	2.60%	39.10%	56.80%	4.506	0.660
RTS ensures faster transmission of poll results reducing chances of manipulation	4.40 %	1.10 %	1.50 %	38.40%	54.60%	4.376	0.930
With the adoption of RTS, there is openness in the transmission of pole results	1.50%	1.10%	1.50%	41.70%	54.20%	4.461	0.724
RTS reduces anxiety among voters	1.80%	1.10%	0.70%	46.90%	49.40%	4.410	0.739
RTS has reduced rigging in elections in Kenya	5.90%	2.20%	4.40%	37.60%	49.80%	4.232	1.055
RTS guarantees integrity of the results	5.50%	2.20%	4.10%	34.30%	53.90%	4.288	1.043
Average	4.379	0.858

Table 4. Clear Measurements on Outcomes Transmission Framework (RTS)

The outcomes further show that a larger part (95.90%) of the respondents was of the assessment that with the appropriation of RTS, there is receptiveness in the transmission of post outcomes. Nonetheless, 2.60% of the respondents held an opposite assessment; they accepted with the appropriation of RTS, there is still no receptiveness in the transmission of shaft results. The reactions had (M=4.461, standard deviation (Std. Dev). Dv=0.724) showing that a large portion of the respondents was in concurrence with the assertion. Also, as shown, 96.30% of the respondents were believing that RTS decreases uneasiness among electors, while 2.90% of them felt in any case. The outcomes had (M=4.410, standard deviation (Std. Dev). Dv=0.739) appearing that a larger part of the respondents concurred with the explanation that RTS diminishes tension among electors. Essentially, the outcomes show that a greater part (87.40%) of the respondents concurred that with the articulation that RTS has diminished gear in races in Kenya; nonetheless, 8.10% felt it had not. The reactions had (M=4.232, standard deviation (Std. Dev). Dev. =1.055) demonstrating that the vast majority of the respondents were in concurrence with the assertion even though the reactions were shifted. At last, the outcomes show that a larger part (88.20%) of the respondents were of the assessment that RTS ensures respectability of the outcomes, while 7.70% held an opposite assessment. The reaction had (M=4.288, standard deviation (Std. Dev). Dev. =1.043). The outcomes show that the vast majority of the respondents concurred with the assertion however the reactions differed. By and large, the outcomes had a normal mean and standard deviation of 4.379 and 0.858 individually showing that the vast majority of the respondents concurred with the assertion however the reactions have differed. The outcomes are steady with the discoveries of Loeber (2017) which demonstrated that, the applications used to guarantee the security of information incorporate appointive registers, programming for the enlistment of gatherings and competitors, and programming for counting, direct information catch machines, and ascertaining results. In any case, these days, electors are additionally defied with ICT arrangements in casting a ballot in certain nations where types of e-casting a ballot are presented.

The credibility of the Present Electoral System

The reliant variable of this examination was the believability of the Appointive Framework. Given the results introduced in Table 4, the larger part 95.20% (41.00%+54.20%) inclined that over the past two general races, IEBC had guaranteed inclusivity in the discretionary cycle. In any case, 1.80% of them accepted something else. The outcome had a mean of 4.458 and a standard deviation of 0.728, demonstrating that the vast majority of the respondents were in concurrence with the assertion. The outcome adjusts with the discoveries of Ibrahim (2019) which uncovered that, in 2013, the Kenyan political race was an exemplary situation where the Free Electing and Limits Commission (IEBC) in association with the media put forth attempts to instruct electors weeks before the overall decisions as a method of expanding the believability of the political race results by decreasing the number of spoilt votes. Additionally, dependent on the outcomes, 92.30% of the respondents accepted that there had been an expansion in transparency in the way in which races were being held in Kenya. Then again, 5.10% accepted that there had never been any adjustment of the transparency in the way in which decisions were being held in Kenya. The outcomes had (M=4.365, standard deviation (Std. Dev). Dev=0.929). This suggests that the vast majority of the respondents inclined that there had been an increment in receptiveness in the way in which decisions were being held in Kenya; in any case, their reactions were spread about the mean as shown by the standard deviation. The outcomes further show that a greater part (96.70%) of the respondents felt that IEBC had been sans conveying, reasonable and sound races since the proclamation of the 2010 constitution. In any case, 1.90% of the respondents held an opposite assessment; they trusted IEBC had not conveyed free, reasonable, and trustworthy decisions since the declaration of the 2010 constitution. The reactions had (M=4.461, standard deviation (Std. Dev). Dv=0.692), showing that the vast majority of the respondents were in concurrence with the assertion. What’s more, as displayed, 97.10% of the respondents were believing that IEBC had acquired the public trust in the way in which they lead races, while 2.90% of them felt in any case. The outcomes had (M=4.410, Standard deviation (Std. Dev). Dv=0.739) showing that a larger part of the respondents concurred with the assertion.

Table 5. Credibility and genuineness of the electoral process

Likewise, the outcomes show that a larger part (86.70%) of the respondents concurred that on account of the respectability of the outcomes conveyed by IEBC, there had been a decrease in strain after pols; in any case, 8.80% disagreed. The reactions had (M=4.255, standard deviation (Std. Dev). Dv=1.111) showing that a large portion of the respondents was in concurrence with the assertion even though the reactions were shifted. At long last, the outcomes show that a greater part (88.10%) of the respondents were of the assessment that political decision petitions had diminished definitely since the presentation of biometric casting a ballot framework by IEBC, while 6.70% accepted nothing had changed. The reaction had (M=4.288, standard deviation (Std. Dev). Dv=1.053). The outcomes show that the majority of the respondents concurred with the assertion yet the reactions were shifted. Generally, the outcomes had a normal mean and standard deviation of 4.371 furthermore, 0.870 individually showing that the greater part of the respondents concurred with the assertion, however, the reactions were shifted.

The correlation analysis

In this investigation, connection examination was led to build up the relationship of competitor enrolment frameworks (CRS) on the validity of the Constituent Framework and to decide the relationship of Results Transmission Framework (RTS) on the believability of the Appointive Framework. The relationship results are introduced in the table below.

Table 6. The correlation matrix

The outcomes in Table 4.5 uncovered that that up-and-comer enlistment frameworks and the validity of constituent frameworks are decidedly and altogether related as shown by (r=0.554, p=0.000). At long last, the connection results showed that there was a positive and critical affiliation between results transmission and show framework and believability of appointive frameworks as displayed by (r=0.648, p=0.000). The relationship results avow the declaration by Jacobsen (2019) that expanded web entrance even in non-industrial nations with helpless correspondences foundation is empowering EMBs to be more viable at conveying inside and with all the partners associated with the interaction. Innovation is likewise assuming an expanded part in improving the uprightness and validity of constituent cycles and reinforcing trust between partners.

The regression analysis

The relapse examination was led to build up the joined impact of applicant enlistment frameworks (CRS) and Results Transmission Framework (RTS) on the believability of the appointive framework. The outcomes introduced in Table 4.6 show the wellness of the model which was deciphered utilizing the R squared worth. The model wellness brings about Table 4.6 shows that CRS and RTS are agreeable factors in clarifying the believability of electing framework. This is upheld by a coefficient of assurance otherwise called the R square of 0.783. This implies that CRS and RTS clarify 78.3% of the varieties in the reliant variable, which for this situation is the believability of the electing framework.

In essence, the relapse of coefficients shows that applicant enlistment frameworks and the validity of constituent frameworks were emphatically and essentially related (β =.152, p=0.000). Also, the outcomes show that there was a positive and critical connection between the result transmission framework and the validity of constituent frameworks (β =.155, p=0.000). This infers that an improvement in CRS and RTS prompts an improvement in the believability of constituent frameworks. The relapse results are predictable with the discoveries of Loeber (2017), which demonstrated that the applications utilized for guaranteeing the security of information incorporate; electing registers, programming for enrolment of gatherings and competitors, and programming for counting, direct information catch machine, and computing results. Nonetheless, these days, electors are additionally gone up against ICT arrangements in casting a ballot in certain nations where types of e-casting a ballot are presented. This can go from genuinely essential structures, for example, a scanner that considers the polling from the citizen places it in the voting booth, to the utilization of casting a ballot PCs in the surveying station, yet in addition far off casting a ballot through the web. The utilization of these new advances raises new difficulties for political decision the board bodies (EMB).

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS

Summary

The advantages of popular government are difficult to exaggerate and perhaps the main cycles of a majority rule government are races. As a youthful majority rule government, Kenya has had 7 general decisions for the public government since Kenya’s first multiparty races in 1992. These decisions have confronted numerous issues, most sadly being the post-political decision flare-up of viciousness in 2007 all through which over 1,000 individuals lost their lives (The Bonus of Investigation into Post-Political decision Brutality (CIPEV), 2008). This segment will investigate the capability of blockchain as a likely answer for different issues related to casting a ballot in Kenya. Kenya’s public decisions in August 2017 expense the Kenyan government more than $500 million, which is $25.4 per citizen (The Public Depository, 2017). This makes the Kenyan appointment of 2017 one of the costliest races on the planet, which is amazing since races commonly become less expensive at the point when a nation has more involvement with having decisions (The Constituent Information Organization, 2017). Around the world, just decisions some portion of harmony keeping activities are accounted for to be this costly. In the 2017 decisions, 90% of the costs were straightforwardly identified with the political race measure, just the leftover 10% was assigned for security tasks during the races (The Public Depository, 2017). The reality that it required 3 days to decide the champ in the August decisions makes the significant expenses much more astonishing.

The Kenyan elections of August 2017 had a qualified elector turnout of 77%, which is moderately high in contrast to other non-industrialized nations and similarly with western nations (Doyle, 2000; Solijonov, 2016). The specific reasons Kenyans do not cast a ballot are not reported, viciousness at survey stations furthermore, an absence of confidence in the constituent framework is referred to as reasons (Cropley and Obulutsa, 2017). During the re-races in October, the decisions were boycotted by the resistance since they didn’t have trust in the framework (Keane, 2017). Exploration shows that just 26% of Kenyans believe in the vote tally, a number that has declined lately (Penar et al., 2016). Kenyans have valid justifications for this, the August political decision results were invalidated on procedural grounds by the high court and during the October re-races last year the top of the political decision commission expressed he was unable to ensure ‘free, reasonable and valid races’ (Sharma, (2017). He referred to impedance from legislators and dangers of viciousness against his partners as purposes behind this. The 2007 public decisions are well-researched and a report by the EU discretionary onlookers’ states ‘Kenyan races have missed the mark concerning key global and local norms for vote-based decisions’ and that ‘they were damaged by an absence of straightforwardness in the handling and counting of official outcomes, which raises worries about the precision of the end-product (Collier and Vicente, 2012 p. 142). The report by the Kenyan political race survey commission expresses: ‘the trustworthiness of the cycle and the validity of the outcomes were so seriously disabled by complex abnormalities and imperfections that it is unessential whether there was genuine fixing at the public count community’ (Kriegler et al., 2008). This vote fixing is generally by the officeholder party members, stating a lot of control over the political race framework.

Violence has assumed a significant part in late Kenyan political run-offs. In August a senior political decision official was tormented and killed before the races (Al Jazeera, 2017). Within the period when elections were held, voting had to be suspended at some point in time since it became hazardous to their lives. (Hamza, 2017). As expressed previously, violence arrived at a peak after the 2007 races, coming about in finished 1.000 deaths and the uprooting of over 600.000 individuals (The Commission of Investigation into Post Election Savagery (CIPEV), 2008). Additionally, sexual violence was far-reaching and extreme negative financial impacts were accounted for (Dupas and Robinson, 2012). 42% of individuals interviewed, accepted that the trigger for the political race savagery was the political race abnormalities and the powerless electing commission (Dercon and Gutiérrez-Romero, 2012). A report by the Kenyan Commission of Investigation into Post-Election Brutality expresses that the savagery was in part set off by the apparent apparatus of the decisions. This shows that making a dependable political race framework could even diminish brutality in Kenya. A blockchain political decision framework could work with this lacking confidence in the Kenyan constituent framework and do significantly more.

Blockchain records permanent exchanges between entertainers. These exchanges can be considered as casts a ballot too. These votes can be executed between the person to the pool of votes of a political race applicant. Votes would be appropriated to all qualified citizens who need evidence of ID to get this voting form (Kartik, 2017). This framework could be run on a public blockchain, not possessed by an administration element. The framework could work as a permissionless framework, with the security being given through motivation components, or by an allowed framework with conceivably the validators being other countries’ government establishments, majority rules system guard dogs, or citizens. Citizens can cast a ballot through an application or site through their gadget or at a surveying station (Barnes, Brake, and Perry, 2016). This would enjoy different upper hands over the current Kenyan democratic framework and other computerized options. Initially, blockchain casting a ballot could be a lot less expensive, even though quotes for current blockchain public democratic frameworks are inaccessible, the current $25 per citizen would in all probability not be reached since faculty, policing and foundation expenses would be fundamentally less since the framework would be computerized. Besides, the framework would be straightforward. In the framework proposed by Kartik, citizens would have the option to follow and tally the votes once cast (Kartik, 2017). Notwithstanding, individuals would not have the option to follow back who cast a ballot, guaranteeing security and forestall pressure or repercussions for casting a ballot. Thirdly, the framework would not be corruptible, the cast votes are recorded in a block, the hash forestalls any resulting altering (Poblet, 2017). This would forestall vote apparatus and post-voting form extortion. Fourthly, the framework could work a lot quicker, perhaps even constant, forestalling a time of vulnerability in which viciousness in Kenya has truly been high (Dupas and Robinson, 2012). Fifthly, the framework that would be a result of this system would be harder to interfere with and bypass as compared to a single server as is the present case. (Kumar, 2017). A genuine advantage since there have been endeavours to interfere with Kenya’s political decision framework. Ultimately, since casting a ballot should be possible through close to home gadgets, individuals’ chance expenses of going to the surveying station is not a boundary any longer, also citizens cannot be deterred to cast a ballot by viciousness, which happened during 2007 decisions (Kriegler et al., 2008).

Moreover, this framework would give approaches to move past the current popularity-based frameworks. Once initiated, casting a ballot would turn out to be a lot less expensive both in expenses of the framework and in a promising circumstance costs. This would take into account the more incessant democratic activities including referenda (Poblet, 2017). Other than this, this foundation would take into consideration elective methods of getting sorted out vote-based system, like fluid majority rule government furthermore, quadratic democratic (Majority rules system Akbar, et. al. (2021); Poblet, 2017). Perhaps even shrewd agreements could be initiated in government choices. For more point-by-point portrayals further, instances of casting a ballot framework running on blockchain see: Barnes, Brake, and Perry (2016); Akbar, et. al. (2021); Kartik (2017). The reception of blockchain casting a ballot in Kenya faces numerous snags in any case. First and foremost and conceivably most significantly, the way that the occupant party cannot impact the votes in any capacity with a blockchain framework may be a burden in their eyes. Furthermore, the blockchain can be viewed as excessively perplexing. The near benefit of blockchain casting a ballot may be high, this is difficult to notice since the investigation into the legitimacy of decisions is testing. A blockchain casting a ballot framework is altogether not the same as the current Kenyan democratic framework, making it incongruent with the current framework. Although, socially the framework may be viable since practically all Kenyans utilize cell phones for different purposes. Individuals that don’t possess a cell phone or other gadget to get to the web may be barred from a simple method of admittance to casting a ballot. Since these individuals are probably going to be more unfortunate and might consequently have distinctive democratic conduct this imbalance may be impeding the popularity-based legitimacy of the democratic.

Another test related to receiving a blockchain is the issue in regards to recognizable proof. The frameworks examined by the Majority rule government Akbar, et. al. (2021); Kartik, 2017; Allen et al., 2017 the distinguishing proof of the citizens gets a lot of consideration. Barnes, Brake, and Perry (2016) propose a different blockchain for distinguishing proof close to the blockchain of casting a ballot. The nature of blockchain to divide among different records to make a mind-boggling arrangement of associated blockchains could help the reception of the next application, in particular, blockchain-based personality the board frameworks.

As we have seen, tallying and classification systems play an essential job in decisions. At the point when they are not run rapidly and straightforwardly, they can raise doubts, contestation, and some of the time even outcome is summed up brutality. We have contended that blockchains can assume a part in guaranteeing that these cycles are run appropriately. In particular, blockchains can be utilized to store brings about a decentralized way, which would forestall anybody from altering the information. Simultaneously, keen agreements innovation can be utilized to confirm the beginning of the information and its legitimacy. Thus, brilliant agreements can total decisions results without causing human mistakes nor debates about the decency of their estimations. Since the information put away in a blockchain is public at all levels, eyewitnesses and residents can watch that the checking strategies are moved along as planned and as indicated by the guidelines. In this paper, we have given some plan decisions to a blockchain-based solidification arrangement of results and itemized the outcomes acquired during the execution of a proof of idea of this framework, because of a brilliant agreement run on Ethereum. While there are as of now numerous recommendations on applying blockchain to casting ballot measures and other public administrations, this is the first that evaluates the benefits and distinguishes the weaknesses of utilizing blockchain for the electronic transmission and combination of political race results.

In such a manner, more work is required in front of fostering a completely practical blockchain-based political decision results union framework. It incorporates building a huge scope demonstrator which ought to be tried in a genuine climate. Security properties (i.e., going through an autonomous security review) ought to likewise be better assessed. Further, attention could be given to social (i.e., real effect on partners’ trust), financial (i.e., proficiency and investment funds), and natural (i.e., energy utilization, manageability) ramifications of huge scope organizations of the framework. Regardless, our outcomes permit us to reason that this proposition for the combination of political decision results dependent on blockchain innovation is possible and that it meets the principal commitments for the transmission and classification of political decision results in a majority rule set.

Obstructions And Contemplations

One of the primary advantages of blockchain is the chance of removing the mediator, there is no need for an outsider like a bank to guarantee the information is right, the blockchain gives that trust. Nonetheless, there is an enormous probability that genuine disintermediation won’t happen, different mediators will take over, in particular blockchain specialists and designers. ”Seeing email, individuals could set up their email worker… anyway most individuals use Gmail… that is simply human instinct, a great many people can’t be tried to do these things.” (Rafiee, 2018). On account of digital forms of money, this is as of now normal, numerous individuals do not accept bitcoin through the Bitcoin network in a straightforward manner or process, yet utilize an outsider wallet administrator. Likewise, shrewd agreements should be written in code, which is regularly not justifiable for individuals utilizing them, which expects them to trust an outsider to compose the code. The intricacy of blockchain joined with the absence of easy-to-use interfaces in blockchain applications gives a genuine test to understanding and inevitable reception by the normal individual (Frantz and Nowostawski, 2016; Tapscott and Tapscott, 2017). The capability of blockchain to enable individuals just applies to those that realize how to utilize it (Seulliet, 2017). Another advanced gap could emerge, between individuals that realize how to utilize the blockchain for their benefit and those who don’t (Swan, 2015). The way that schooling in non-industrial nations like Kenya is evaluated inadequately will give extra difficulties in utilizing blockchain for a comprehensive turn of events, the computerized gap can fill in another manner, in light of computerized abilities.

The advanced separation in the traditional sense, the gap in admittance to computerized innovation, can be an enormous obstruction in blockchain selection, particularly for government applications. In the examined applications of blockchain in races, property naming, and personality the board, the Kenyan government is reasonable to need these administrations to be all-around available, which is trying since not all individuals and regions in Kenya have web access. On the off chance that a blockchain-based democratic framework is received, casting a ballot can be made conceivable through cell phones, Personal Computers (PCs), or at surveying stations (Barnes, Brake, and Perry, 2016). Be that as it may, individuals without web access will just have the chance to cast a ballot at a surveying station, making disparities in the simplicity of deciding in favour of individuals, particularly when more extravagant individuals have admittance to simpler elector techniques. This disparity can be a significant issue with blockchain-based democratic also, other blockchain taxpayer-driven organizations in Kenya.

The power utilization of blockchain networks is a significant hindrance in blockchain selection. Review that blockchain as the innovation is in its beginning stage. The most demonstrated and grounded method of agreeing is the verification of-work component, utilized in the most investigated blockchain networks: Bitcoin and Ethereum, which utilize a lot of force (Swanson, 2015). Ethereum is moving to a proof-of-stake agreement component to avoid squandering a lot of energy, though this is proving more challenging than anticipated (Tapscott and Tapscott, 2017). Bitcoin’s weighty energy use is a huge hindrance in blockchain appropriation, both on itself and identifying with the global force elements associated with them. A large portion of the mining power in the Bitcoin organization is situated in China on account of the low power costs there (Yang, 2018). The way that the greater part of the votes is situated in only one nation can have ramifications for blockchain administration. Power creation overall is appropriated unevenly and this can make an inconsistent equilibrium of power when the agreement of the blockchain depends on preparing power utilizing a lot of energy. Since more unfortunate nations for the most part have lower power creation limits, this can extraordinary global awkward nature in the agreement force of an overall organization.

Conclusive Remarks

Blockchain is a progressive innovation fit for changing economies and social orders. Through blockchain, it is feasible to make a dependable record of important exchanges without requiring an outsider validator or authority. Blockchain’s characteristics of information’s unchanging nature, straightforwardness, and decentralization make tampering for all intents and purposes unthinkable. Along these lines, blockchain’s advantages are bigger in agricultural nations where extortion and debasement are more normal. Be that as it may, the scant blockchain writing chiefly focuses on blockchain in a western setting. This proposition is intended to investigate the conceivable blockchain-based applications in an African nation to make an introductory knowledge into where this youthful innovation is fit for creating an impact among citizens of the nation. The monetary help area is the primary region where blockchain is probably going to make a change. Worldwide changes in systems may result in significant changes for Kenya. However, the otherwise initial traditional methods of exchange may be deemed thoroughly expensive and obsolete due to technological advancements. A blockchain application like Wave could work incredibly on the speed and security of global exchanges. Likewise, blockchain can be utilized in traditional banking for more effectiveness, security, and straightforwardness. Also, digital forms of money can outperform the mediators and be utilized rather than fiat monetary forms, the fame of M-Pesa, the dependability of the Pushing, and the negative perspective on the Kenyan National bank on digital currencies are probably going to forestall this, since cash, also, in this manner digital currency, shows solid organization impacts and needs a huge near benefit to defeat this Ndemo & Weiss (2017).

Blockchain’s ability to give straightforward solid information could be utilized in complex worth chains where straightforwardness and honesty are required. It could enormously build the trust between different entertainers in a worth chain, particularly in non-industrial nations, where trust is especially low. Also, blockchain could give trust and straightforwardness in organizations, where there is an absence of trust and a call for additional straightforwardness. Blockchain even could outperform the foundations and empower direct global gifts. In different taxpayer-driven organizations where extortion is probably going to happen blockchain can give a premise to some information framework. In Kenya, decisions, land vaults and less significantly character the executives’ frameworks could profit with utilizing blockchain to give a sealed system that can guarantee no misrepresentation has happened in the information, something that could even forestall struggle on account of races. The way that the Kenyan government has dedicated itself to further developing government e-administrations and decreasing debasement Riany, (2021), shows that the appropriation of blockchain can happen around here. The most progressive use of blockchain is brilliant agreements, which are self-executing contracts empowering programmed and independent exchanges, diminishing the danger and accordingly need for trust in a monetary framework. Selection is dependent upon blockchain reception in associated domains such as banks and property naming and is probably going to require many years.

Kenya’s ability to maximize the advantages of blockchain is generally insignificant as compared to blockchain’s abilities. Its schooling framework, computerized foundation, and levels of financial advancement repress it from completely exploiting new IT advancements like blockchain. Furthermore, a huge split exists between the rich, metropolitan, and well-educated, who have profited most from past innovations like the cell phone and the cell phone, and those that could not because of an absence of monetary means, actual access, or training. This unexplored gap can affect the appropriation of blockchain technology in regions where all-inclusive access is preferred, for instance, races. Furthermore, the moderately bad quality of training in Kenya is bound to forestall disintermediation in different areas since blockchain specialists and engineers are important to develop, comprehend blockchain applications. Generally, blockchain is a progressive innovation with an enormous capability of changing different components of Kenyan culture. The specific direction and estimate of this change will require considerably more scholastic investigation into this, particularly concerning utilizing blockchain as a device for the comprehensive turn of events. Quintessentially, the imagined conceivable outcomes examined in this proposition can probably be ground-breaking.

Suggestions for Future Work

To start with, the utilization of Blockchain-Enabled E-Voting should find a way into the current lawful system. Something else, the selection of Blockchain-Enabled E-Voting (BEV) will require a change to the administrative system to oblige the redistribution of power and duties related to the utilization of the blockchain convention. In essence, this change can be perceived to be one of the prerequisites, alongside straightforwardness, necessity and responsibility.

Secondly, the perpetuation of power should be prepared to connect with outsiders who may evaluate or review and proclaim the wellness of the blockchain casting a ballot framework. For instance, in the Blockchain-Enabled E-Voting (BEV) arrangement received by Moscow Regional Government, PWC was charged to attempt a review of the framework to guarantee to ensure non-impedance through inward staff and outside assault. This is essential in building trust in the blockchain frameworks themselves.

Thirdly, similar to some other innovation empowered electing advances, blockchain-based arrangements should be “essential, precise, certain, protected, responsible and straightforward”. Furthermore, acquisition, organization, and testing of the blockchain arrangement should be finished a while before roll-out in any political race.

Fourthly, Discretionary the board bodies should have the imperative ability to proficiently uphold the blockchain arrangement and giving sufficient possibilities to unanticipated difficulties that might emerge. Finally, keeping continuous correspondence with partners during periods that prompt the utilization of blockchains for a political race will persuade partners regarding the likely advantages whilst acquiring the upfront investment from ideological groups themselves is essential. In expansion, the model of blockchain execution should be custom-made to the real factors of the nearby climate.

By: Allwrite Solutions

AK. Stine

References

“Serpent GitHub page,” [Online]. Available: https://github.com/ethereum/serpent. [Accessed November 2018].

“Solidity documentation webpage,” [Online]. Available: https://solidity.readthedocs.io/. [Accessed November 2018]. <http://brennan.3cdn.net/3234b49c4234d92bf3_3km6i2ifu. pdf> [10 May 2015]. 1-8). IEEE. 242-245.

A. Bahga and V.K. Madisetti, “Blockchain Platform for Industrial Internet of Things”, Journal of Software Engineering & Applications, vol. 9, no. 10, pp. 533-546, 2016. Doi: 10.4236/jsea.2016.910036

A. L. Dahir, “Blockchain won’t solve all of Kenya’s elections problems,” Quartz Africa, 22 August 2018. [Online]. Available: https://qz.com/africa/1366383/blockchain-technology-wont-solve-kenyaselections-problems-just-yet/. [Accessed 14 November 2018].

Abdullah, N., Hakansson, A., & Moradian, E. (2017, July). Blockchain-based approach to

Abodunrin, O., Oloye, G., & Alaba, A. (2018). Technology-Based Device and Electoral Process in Nigeria. Global Journal of Applied, Management, and Social Sciences, 15.

Accenture (2015) ‘Blockchain Technology: Preparing for Change’.

Achieng, M., & Ruhode, E. (2013). The adoption and challenges of electronic voting technologies within the South African context. arXiv preprint arXiv:1312.2406.

Adeshina, S. A., & Ojo, A. (2019, December). Maintaining voting integrity using Blockchain. In 2019 15th International Conference on Electronics, Computer and Computation (ICECCO) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.

Adiputra, C. K., Hjort, R., & Sato, H. (2018, October). A proposal of blockchain-based electronic voting system. In 2018 Second World Conference on Smart Trends in Systems, Security and Sustainability (WorldS4) (pp. 22-27). IEEE.

Afrobarometer 2016, ‘Trust and Corruption in Public Institutions: Ghanaian Opinions’, Available at www.afrobarometer.org.

Agbu, O. (2016). Election rigging and the use of technology: the Smart Card Reader as the Joker in Nigeria‟s 2015 Presidential Election. Journal of African Elections, 15(2), 90-111.

Ahmed Kosba, Andrew Miller, Elaine Shi, Zikai Wen, and Charalampos Papamanthou. Hawk: The blockchain model of cryptography and privacy-preserving smart contracts. In 2016 IEEE symposium on security and privacy (SP), pages 839–858. IEEE, 2016.

Akbar, P., Loilatu, M. J., Pribadi, U., & Sudiar, S. (2021, March). Implementation of Artificial Intelligence by the General Elections Commission in Creating a Credible Voter List. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 717, No. 1, p. 012017). IOP Publishing.

Aker, J. C., and Mbiti, I. M. (2009) ‘Mobile Phones and Economic Development in Africa’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24(3), pp. 1–44. DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.1629321.

Akpan, NE & Adagba, SO 2018, ‘Information Technology: A Contemporary Tool to Combat Electoral Fraud in Nigeria’, International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Reviews, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 78–87.

Alebiosu, E.A. (2016). Smart card reader and the 2015 general elections in Nigeria. Journal of African Elections, 15(2), 69-89.

Alexander Wilhelm. Blockchain technology and the development of african economies: Promises, opportunities, and the legal issues at stake. RiA Recht in Afrika| Law in Africa| Droit en Afrique, 22(1):3–42, 2019.

Alexandrou, M. (2013) Technology Adoption Life Cycle *. Available at: https://infolific.com/technology/technology-adoption-life-cycle/ (Accessed: 21 December 2017).

Alhassan, A. A. (2018). The Role and Use of social media in Elections Campaigns and Voting Behavior in Nigeria: An Analysis of the 2015 Presidential Election. International Journal of Recent Innovations in Academic Research, 2(6), 117-129.

Alhuwalia, P. (2016). Can Uganda Ever Have Democratic Elections?

Al‐Khatib, J. A., Vitell, S. J. and Rawwas, M. Y. A. (1997) ‘Consumer ethics: a cross‐cultural investigation’, European Journal of Marketing, 31(11/12), pp. 750–767. DOI: 10.1108/03090569710190514.

Anjum, A., Sporny, M., & Sill, A. (2017). Blockchain standards for compliance and trust. IEEE Cloud Computing, 4(4), 84-90.

Anonymous on blockchain and off-blockchain bitcoin transactions. In International conference on financial cryptography and data security (pp. 43-60). Springer, berlin, Heidelberg.

Asante, W & Asare, BE 2017, ‘Ghana’s 2012 Election Petition and Its Outcome: A Giant Leap Towards Democratic Consolidation’, in BE Asare & AKD Frempong (eds), Selected Issues in Ghana’s Democracy Vol. 1, Digibooks Ghana Ltd., Tema.

Asante, W 2008, Election Management and Democratic Growth: The Case of the Electoral Commission of Ghana, BA Dissertation, University of Ghana, Accra.

Ashenfelter, O & Kelley, S Jr. 1975, ‘Determinants of participation in Presidential elections’, Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 18, pp. 695–733.

Ashwini, S. N., Ashwini, K. C., Belavatagi, B. I., Kumuda, B., & Bhaskar, S. V. (2017). Aadhar and Biometric Based Electronic Voting Machine. Perspectives in Communication, Embedded-systems, and Signal-processing-PiCES, 1(8), 145-148.

Asongu, S. A. (2012) On the effect of foreign aid on corruption, Economics Bulletin. Available at: http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84873459873&partnerID=40&md5=7d4e079a5d15838e9ea81dd91714a720.

Augot, D. et al. (2017) ‘Transforming face-to-face identity proofing into anonymous digital identity using the Bitcoin blockchain’, pp. 1–10. Available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1710.02951.

Auka, D. O., Bosire, J. N. and Matern, V. (2013) ‘Perceived Service Quality and Customer Loyalty in Retail Banking in Kenya’, British Journal of Marketing Studies, 1(3), pp. 32–61.

Autade, K., Ghadge, P., Kale, S., Kulkarni, N. J., & Mujgond, S. S. (2012). E-voting on Android System. International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering, 2(2),

authentication: somebody you know. In Proceedings of the 13th ACM conference on Computer and communications security (pp. 168-178).

Ayee, JRA 1997, ‘Election Management and Democratic Consolidation: The Case of Electoral Commission of Ghana’, in JRA Ayee (ed), The 1996 General Elections and Democratic Consolidation, Department of Political Science, Accra.

Azaria, A., Ekblaw, A., Vieira, T., Lippman, A. (2016, August). Medrec: Using blockchain for medical data access and permission management. In 2016 2nd International Conference on Open and Big Data (OBD) (pp. 25-30). IEEE.

Baars, D. (2016) Towards Self-Sovereign Identity using Blockchain Technology, University of Twente.Bank for International Settlements (1997) Real-Time Gross Settlement Systems, Real-time Gross Settlement Systems.

Banks, AJ 2005, Race, rhetoric, and technology: Searching for higher ground, Routledge. Barzel, Y & Silberberg, E 1973, ‘Is the act of voting rational?’, Public Choice, vol. 16, pp. 51–58.

Baptiste, M. (2017) The use of blockchain in clearing and settlement.

Barnes, A., Brake, C. and Perry, T. (2016) ‘Digital Voting with the use of Blockchain Technology.

Bassey, S. A., Anweting, K. I., & Maashin, A. T. (2019). Democracy and globalization with sustainable development in Africa: A Philosophical perspective. (61), 47-62.

Bates, C. (2016) ‘BitLand Global White Paper’. Available at: http://www.bitland.world/wpcontent/uploads/2016/03/Bitland_Whitepaper.pdf%5Cnhttp://bitlandglobal.com/.

Baudier, P., Kondrateva, G., Ammi, C., & Seulliet, E. (2021). Peace engineering: The contribution of blockchain systems to the e-voting process. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 162, 120397.

Beck, R., & Müller-Bloch, C. (2017). Blockchain as Radical Innovation: A Framework for Engaging with Distributed Ledgers as Incumbent Organization, 5390–5399. https://doi.org/10.24251/HICSS.2017.653

Bening, RB 2012, ‘The Creation of Districts and Constituencies in Ghana: Some Pertinent Issues in the Current Dispensation’, Ghana Journal of Geography, vol. 4, pp. 1–17.

Birch, S., & Muchlinski, D. (2018). Electoral violence prevention: what works? Democratization, 25(3), 385-403.

Biswas, K., Muthukkumarasamy, V. and Tan, W. L. (2017) ‘Blockchain-Based Wine Supply Chain Traceability System’, Future Technologies Conference.

Bitfury Group (2016) ‘Digital Assets on Public Blockchains.

Bitsoko (no date) Bitsoko. Available at: https://bitsoko.wordpress.com/about/ (Accessed: 22 December 2017).

Boafo-Arthur, K 1995, ‘Managing Inter-Party Conflict in Ghanaian Politics: Lessons from the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Dialogue’, in M Oquaye (ed), Democracy and Conflict Resolution in Ghana, Gold-Type Publications Limited, Accra.

Boateng, KA & Akaba, M 2015, ‘Computerising the Voting Process: On the Difficulties and Benefits of Biometric Verification Elections’, Lecture Notes on Software Engineering, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 67–72.

Borner, S., Brunetti, A., & Weder, B. (2016). Political credibility and economic development. Springer.

Bosio, E. and Vilquin, J. (2013) ‘Enforcing contracts’.

Botchway, TP & Kwarteng, AH 2018, ‘Electoral Reforms and Democratic Consolidation in Ghana: An Analysis of the Role of the Electoral Commission in the Fourth Republic (1992-2016)’, Asian Research Journal of Arts & Social Sciences, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 1–12.

Bower, J. L., and Christensen, C. M. (1995) ‘Disruptive technologies: catching the wave’, Harvard Business Review. DOI: 10.1016/0024-6301(95)91075-1.

Bowman, W. (2006) ‘Should donors care about overhead costs? Do they care?’, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 35(2), pp. 288–310. DOI: 10.1177/0899764006287219.

Bozic, N., Pujolle, G., & Secci, S. (2016, December). A tutorial on blockchain and applications to secure network control planes. In 2016 3rd Smart Cloud Networks & Systems (SCNS) (pp.

Brainard, J., Juels, A., Rivest, R. L., Szydlo, M., & Yung, M. (2006, October). Fourth-factor

Brandon, D. (2016). The blockchain: The future of business information systems. International Journal of the Academics Business World, 10(2), 33-40.

Brezis, E. S., Krugman, P. R. and Tsiddon, D. (1993) ‘Leapfrogging in International Competition: A theory of Cycles in National Technological Leadership’, The American Economic Review, 83(5), pp. 1211–1219. DOI: papers2://publication/UUID/5195A2D1-0583-4234-A01F-E42A1572F765.

Brock, T. (2017) Business advantages of blockchain smart contracts – The Business Journals. Available at: https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/how-to/technology/2017/09/business-advantages-ofblockchain-smart-contracts

C. Kim, “Ukraine Election Official Launches Voting Trial Using NEM’s Blockchain,” Coindesk, 7 August 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.coindesk.com/a-ukrainian-election-official-is-trialing-nemsblockchain-for-voting. [Accessed 14 November 2018].

C. Meter, “Design of Distributed Voting Systems”, MSc Thesis, Department of Computer Science, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, September 2015, Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/pdf/1702.02566.pdf, on 20 March 2018.

Card, D & Moretti, E 2007, ‘Does voting technology affect election outcomes? Touch-screen voting and the 2004 Presidential election’, Review of Economics and Statistics, vol. 89, no. 4, pp. 660–673.

Careja, R., & Bevelander, P. (2018). Using population registers for migration and integration research: examples from Denmark and Sweden. Comparative migration studies, 6(1), 1-27.

Chakrabarti, A., & Chaudhuri, A. K. (2017). Blockchain and its Scope in Retail. International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology, 4(7), 3053-3056.

Chan, S. (2019). Free and Fair?: Observation of Selected African Elections. Journal of African Elections, 18(1), 1-22.

Chang, T.H., & Svetinovic, D. (2016, November). Data analysis of digital currency networks: Namecoin case study. In 2016 21st International Conference on Engineering of Complex Computer Systems (ICECCS) (pp. 122-125). IEEE.

Chanson, M., Bogner, A., Wortmann, F., & Fleisch, E. (2017, September)> Blockchain as a privacy enabler: an odometer fraud prevention system. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM

Cheeseman, N., Kanyinga, K., Lynch, G., Ruteere, M., & Willis, J. (2019). Kenya‟s 2017 elections: winner-takes-all politics as usual? Journal of Eastern African Studies, 13(2), 215-234.

Cheeseman, N., Lynch, G., & Willis, J. (2018). Digital dilemmas: The unintended consequences of election technology. Democratization, 25(8), 1397-1418.

Chen, G., Xu, B., Lu, M., Chen, N. S. (2018). Exploring blockchain technology and its potential applications of education. Smart Learning Environments, 5(11).

Cheng, S., Daub, M., Domeyer, A., & Lundqvist, M. (2017). Using blockchain to improve data management in the public sector. Retrieved May 18, 2018.

Collier, P., & Vicente, P. C. (2012). Violence, bribery, and fraud: the political economy of elections in Sub-Saharan Africa. Public choice, 153(1), 117-147.

Cong, L. W. (2017). Blockchain Disruption and Smart Contracts.

Cooper, D. R., & Schindler, P. S, 2001, Business Research Methods.

Cooper, D. R., & Schindler, P. S. (2008). Business research methods (Vol. 2). London: McGrawHill Higher Education.

Creative Associates International Inc. (2010). Electoral Security Framework: Technical Guidance Handbook for Democracy and Governance Officers. United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Creswell, JW 2007, Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches,2nd ed, Sage Publications Inc., Thousand Oaks.

Daneshgar, F., Sianaki, O. A., & Guruwacharya, P. (2019, March). Blockchain: a research framework for data security and privacy. In Workshops of the International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications (pp. 966-974). Springer, Cham.

Daramola, O., & Thebus, D. (2020, June). Architecture-centric evaluation of blockchain-based smart contract e-voting for national elections. In Informatics (Vol. 7, No. 2, p. 16). Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute.

Data Kept Best!,” ICEGOV ’18 Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, pp. 673-675, 2018.

De Filippi, P., & Loveluck, B. (2016). The invisible politics of bitcoin: Governance crisis of a decentralized infrastructure. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm

Debrah, E 2015, ‘Reforming Ghana’s Electoral Process: Lessons and the Way Forward’, Journal of Politics and Law, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 1–13.

Dennis, R., & Owen, G. (2015, December). Rep on the block: A next-generation reputation system based on the blockchain. In 2015 10th International Conference for Internet Technology and Secured Transactions (ICITST) (pp. 131-138). IEEE.

Department for Work and Pensions. (2014). Fraud and Error in the Benefit System 2013/14. Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system

Derbyshire, J. and Giovannetti, E. (2017) ‘Understanding the failure to understand New Product Development failures: Mitigating the uncertainty associated with innovating new products by combining scenario planning and forecasting’, Technological Forecasting and Social Change. The Authors, 125, pp. 334–344. DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2017.02.007.

Dercon, S. and Gutiérrez-Romero, R. (2012) ‘Triggers and characteristics of the 2007 Kenyan electoral violence’, World Development, 40(4), pp. 731–744. DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2011.09.015.

Deutsche Bundesbank. (2017). Distributed ledger technologies in payments and securities settlement: Potential and risks. Monthly Report, (September), 35–49. Retrieved from https://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/EN/Downloads/Publications/Monthly_Report_Artic les/2017/2017_09_distributed.pdf? blob=publicationFile

Digiconomist (2017) Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index. Available at: https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption (Accessed: 6 November 2017).

Dimitri, N. (2017). The Blockchain Technology: Some Theory and Applications. Maastricht School of Management: Working Paper No. 2017/03.

Do, H. G., & Ng, W. K. (2017, June). Blockchain-based system for secure data storage with private keyword search. In 2017 IEEE World Congress on Services (SERVICES) (pp. 90-93). IEEE.

Dorpenyo, I. K. (2019). Risky Election, Vulnerable Technology: Localizing Biometric Use in Elections for the Sake of Justice. Technical Communication Quarterly, 1-15.

Dorpenyo, IK 2016, Unblackboxing Technology Through the Rhetoric of Technical Communication: Biometric Technology and Ghana’s 2012 Elections, PhD Dissertation, Michigan Technological University, Michigan.

Dorri, A., Steger, M., Kanhere, S. S., & Jurdak, R. (2017). Blockchain: A distributed solution to automotive security and privacy. IEEE Communications Magazine, 55(12), 119-125.

Doyle, R. (2000) Voter Turnout, Scientific American. doi: 10.1038/scientificamerican1100 23.

Dubai News Office (2017) Dubai News. Available at: http://mediaoffice.ae/en/mediacenter/news/7/10/2017/dubai-land-department.aspx (Accessed: 28 December 2017).

Dudder, B. and Ross, O. (2017) ‘Timber Tracking (Position Paper)’.

Dupas, P., & Robinson, J. (2012). The (hidden) costs of political instability: Evidence from Kenya’s 2007 election crisis. Journal of Development Economics, 99(2), 314-329.

Effah, J & Debrah, E 2018, ‘Biometric technology for voter identification: The experience in Ghana’, The Information Society, vol. 34, no. 2, 104–113. DOI:10.1080/01972243.2017.1414720

Elisa, N., Yang, L., Chao, F., & Cao, Y. (2018). A framework of blockchain-based secure and privacy-preserving E-government system. Wireless Networks, 1-11.

Engelenburg, S.v., Janssen, M., & Klievink, B. (2017). Design of a software architecture supporting business-to-government information sharing to improve public safety and security: Combining business rules, events and blockchain technology. Journal of Intelligent Information Systems. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10844-017-0478-z

enhance big data authentication in a distributed environment. In the 2017 Ninth International Conference on Ubiquitous and Future Networks (ICUFN) (pp. 887-892). IEEE.

European Commission, Methodological guide on electoral assistance, 2006.

European Parliament (2016). Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation). Official Journal of the European Union L199/1 Farber, SH 2009, ‘Increasing Voter Turnout: Is Democracy Day the Answer?’, CEPS Working Paper, no. 181, pp. 1–19.

Ferrag, M.A., Derdour, M., Mukherjee, M., Derhab, A., Maglaras, L., & Janicke, H. (2018). Blockchain technologies for the internet of things: Research issues and challenges. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 6(2), 2188-2204.

Filer, JE & Kenny, LW 1980, ‘Voter turnout and the benefits of voting’, Public Choice, vol. 35, pp. 575–585.

Filer, JE, Kenny, LW & Morton, R 1991, ‘Voting laws, educational policies, and mi-nority turnout’, Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 34, pp. 371–394.

Fisher L. B., Isa W., Bryn A., Carlos A. C., Graham A. C. (2007). Predictors of Initiation of Alcohol Use Among US Adolescents. Findings From a Prospective Cohort Study. Arch Pedriatr Adolesc Med,161, 959-966.

Fisher, J., & Sanchez, M. H. (2016). U.S. Patent Application No. 15/083,238.

Frempong, AKD 2008, ‘Innovations in Electoral Politics in Ghana’s Fourth Republic: An Analysis’, in C Raventos, (ed), Democratic Innovation in the South: Participation and

Frempong, AKD 2015, ‘Elections in Ghana (1951 – 2012)’, Life @ 60 Publishers, Accra. Ghana Statistical Service 2013, 2010 Population and Housing Census: National Analytical Report, Government of Ghana, Accra. GhanaStatisticalService2014,2010 Population and Housing Census Report: Urbanization in Ghana, 16 May 2018]

Fridgen, G., Radszuwill, S., Urbach, N., & Utz, L. (2018, January). Cross-organizational workflow management using blockchain technology towards applicability, auditable, and automation. In Proceedings of the 51st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

Gabison, G. (2016). Policy considerations for the blockchain technology public and private applications. SMU Sci. & Tech. L. Rev., 19, 327.

Garcia-Barriocanal, E., Sanchez-Alonso, S., & Sicilla, M. A. (2017, November). Deploying metadata on blockchain technologies. In Research Conference on Metadata and Semantics Research (pp. 38-49). Springer, Cham.

Gates, B. (2018). Chapter Twelve Technology and Mediated Social Presence. Musings on the Teacher’s Art, 131.

Gatteschi, V., Lamberti, F., Demartini, C., Pranteda, C., & Santamaria, V. (2018). To blockchain or not to blockchain. That is the question. IT Professional, 20(2), 62-74.

Gelb, A & Diofasi, A 2016, ‘Biometric Elections in Poor Countries: Wasteful or a Worthwhile Investment?’ Working Paper 435, Center for Global Development, Available at < www.cgdev.org> (6 May 2018).

Gerck E , NeffCA , Rivest RL , Rubin AD , Yung M. (2002). The business of electronic voting. In: Financial cryptography 2001. In: LNCS, 2339

Goggin SN , Byrne MD , Gilbert JE. (2014). Post-election auditing: effects of procedure and ballot type on manual counting accuracy, efficiency, and auditor satisfaction and confidence. Election Law J.

Golden, M, Kramon, E & Ofosu, G 2014, Electoral Fraud and Biometric Identification Machine Failure in a Competitive Democracy, Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 28–31, Washington, DC.

Gupta, A., Patel, J., Gupta, M., & Gupta, H. (2017). Issues and Effectiveness of Blockchain Technology on Digital Voting. International Journal of Engineering and Manufacturing Science, 7(1).

Gyekye-Jandoh, MAA 2013, ‘Electoral reform and gradual democratization in Africa: The case of Ghana’, African Journal of Social Sciences, pp. 74–92.

H. Partz, “Crypto Valley’s Zug to Run Switzerland’s First Blockchain-Based Municipal Vote,” Cointelegraph, 9 June 2018. [Online]. Available: https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-valley-s-zug-to-run-switzerland-sfirst-blockchain-based-municipal-vote. [Accessed 14 November 2018].

Halpin, H., & Piekarska, M. (2017). Introduction to Security and Privacy on the Blockchain. 2017 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshop s (pp. 1-3). Paris: IEEE

Heale, R., & Twycross, A. (2015). Validity and reliability in quantitative studies. Evidencebased nursing, 18(3), 66-67.

Heiberg S , Martens T , Vinkel P , Willemson J. (2017). Improving the verifiability of the estonian internet voting scheme.

Heiberg S, Willemson J. (2014). Verifiable internet voting in Estonia. In: Electronic voting: verifying the vote (EVOTE), 6th international conference

Heilman, E., Baldimtsi, F., & Goldberg, S. (2016, February). Blindly signed contracts:

Holland, J. L. (2013). Age Gap? The Influence of Age on Voting Behavior and Political Preferences in the American Electorate.

Hsiao, J. H., Tso, R., Chen, C. M., & Wu, M. E. (2017). Decentralized E-voting systems based on blockchain technology. In Advances in Computer Science and Ubiquitous Computing (pp. 305-309). Springer, Singapore.

Hull, R. (2017, June). Blockchain: distributed event-based processing in a data-centric world. In Proceedings of the 11th ACM International Conference on Distributed and Event-based Systems (pp. 2-4)

Ikeda, K., & Hamid, M.-N. (2018). Applications of Blockchain in the Financial Sector and a Peer-to-Peer Global Barter Web, 1–22. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.adcom.2018.03.008

Ikuero, F. E., Germanos, V., Brooks, L., & Zeng, W. (2021). Is E-voting Systems based on Blockchain Technology Efficient in Nigeria General Elections?

International IDEA, International Obligations for Elections. Guidelines for legal Frameworks, 2014.

International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings of the 2017 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers (pp. 13-16).

Iwuoha, V. C. (2018). ICT and elections in Nigeria: rural dynamics of biometric voting technology adoption. Africa Spectrum, 53(3), 89-113.

J. Cucurull, A. Rodríguez-Pérez, T. Finogina, and J. Puiggalí, “Blockchain-based internet voting: system’s compliance with international standards,” In: Abramowicz W., Paschke A. (eds) Business Information Systems Workshops. BIS 2018. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 339. Springer, Cham, pp 300-312

J. Rooksby and K. Dimitrov, “Trustless Education? A Blockchain System for University Grades”, Paper presented at New Value Transactions: Understanding and Designing for Distributed Autonomous Organisations, Workshop at DIS2017, 10th June 2017, Edinburgh. Retrieved from http://johnrooksby.org/papers/DAOworkshop_rooksby.pdf, on 20 May 2017

J. S. Park, Y. S. Kim, C.-h. Choi, and J. Shim, “How to Define Value on Data under Blockchain Driven Open Data System for E-Government,” ICEGOV ’18 Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, pp. 670-672, 2018.

Jackson, LA 2009, ‘Biometric Technology: The future of assurance and authentication in the lodging industry’, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 21, pp. 892–905.

Jacobsen, K. L. (2019). Biometric voter registration: A new modality of democracy assistance? Cooperation and Conflict, 0010836719850219.

Jonathan Keane, E. (2017). Sweden Moves to Next Stage with Blockchain Land Registry.

Jones, R., McAllister, I., & Gow, D. (2018). Australian election study, 1996.

K. Houser, “Hold Up: What Actually Happened in Sierra Leone’s “Blockchain” Election?,” Futurism, 2 April 2018. [Online]. Available: https://futurism.com/sierra-leone-election-blockchain-agora. [Accessed 14 November 2018].

Kadena, E. Blockchain integration into mobile devices. RAJNAI ZOLTAN KIBERBIZTONSAG_CYBERSECURITY 2., 195.

Kalra, S., Goel, S., Dhawan, M., & Sharma, S. (2018, February). ZEUS: Analyzing Safety of Smart Contracts. In NDSS.

Kanyinga, K., & Odote, C. (2019). Judicialisation of politics and Kenya‟s 2017 elections. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 13(2), 235-252.

Karafiloski, E., & Mishev, A. (2017, July). Blockchain solutions for big data challenges. A literature review. In IEEE EUROCON 2017-17th International Conference on Smart Technologies (pp. 763-768). IEEE.

Kartik, H. (2017). ANALYSIS OF PRESENT-DAY ELECTION PROCESSES VIS-À-VIS ELECTIONS THROUGH BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY.

Kenny, C. (2019). „Women Are Not Ready to [Vote for] Their Own‟: Remaking Democracy, Making Citizens After the 2007 Post-Election Violence in Kenya. In Rethinking Transitional Gender Justice (pp. 273-294). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

KHORAMSHAD, M. B., & Rafiee, G. A. (2018). Electoral System and its Impact on the Party System in Iran.

Kirk, D. (1996) ‘Demographic Transition Theory’, Population Studies, 50(3), pp. 361–387. DOI: 10.1080/0032472031000149536.

Kitchens, B., Dobolyi, D., Li, J., & Abbasi, A. (2018). Advanced customer analytics: Strategic value through integration of relationship-oriented big data. Journal of Management Information Systems, 35(2), 540-574.

Knack, S 1994, ‘Does rain help the Republicans? Theory and evidence on turnout and the vote’, Public Choice, vol. 79, pp. 187–209.

Koulu, R. (2016) ‘Blockchain and Online Dispute Resolution: Smart Contracts as an Alternative to Enforcement’, Scripted, 13(1). DOI: 10.2966/scrip.130116.41.

Kravchenko, P. (2016) Ok, I need a blockchain, but which one ? Available at: https://medium.com/@pavelkravchenko/ok-i-need-a-blockchain-but-which-one-ca75c1e2100 (Accessed: 26 December 2017).

Krieger, M. (2008). Cameroon’s Social Democratic Front: Its History and Prospects as an Opposition Political Party (1990-2011): Its History & Prospects as an Opposition Political Party (1990-2011). African Books Collective.

Krieger, S. H., & Martinez, S. A. (2010). A tale of election day 2008: teaching storytelling through repeated experiences. Legal Writing: J. Legal Writing Inst., 16, 117.

Kriegler, J. et al. (2008) ‘Report of the Independent Review Commission on the General Elections held in Kenya on 27 December 2007 (Kriegler Report)’, (September). Available at: http://aceproject.org/regions-en/countries-and-territories/KE/reports/independent-reviewcommission-on-the-general.

Kshetri, N., & Voas, J. (2018). Blockchain-enabled e-voting. Ieee Software, 35(4), 95-99.

Kubjas, I. (2017). Using blockchain technology for enabling internet voting.

Kulyk, O., & Volkamer, M. (2016, February). Efficiency comparison of various approaches in e-voting protocols. In International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security (pp. 209-223). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Kumar, B., Ghai, R., Tyagi, M., & Gupta, R. (2020, January). Leveraging Technology for Robust Financial Facilities: A Comparative Assessment of BRICS Nations. In 2020 International Conference on Computation, Automation and Knowledge Management (ICCAKM) (pp. 481-486). IEEE.

Kumar, V. (2017) E-Democracy for Smart Cities. Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-981-10-4035-1.

L. C. Documentation. [Online]. Available: https://llldocs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/lll_introduction.html. [Accessed November 2018].

L.W. Park, S. Lee and H. Chang, “A Sustainable Home Energy Prosumer-Chain Methodology with Energy Tags over the Blockchain”, Sustainability, MDPI, Open A. Baliga, “Understanding Blockchain Consensus Models”, Persistent

Laakso, L. (2019). Electoral Violence and Political Competition in Africa. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics.

Lemieux, V. L. (2016) ‘Trusting records: is Blockchain technology the answer?’, Records Management Journal, 26(2), pp. 110–139. DOI: 10.1108/RMJ-12-2015-0042.

Liang, G., Weller, S. R., Luo, F., Zhao, J., & Dong, Z.Y. (2018). Distributed blockchain-based data protection framework for modern power systems against cyber-attacks. IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 10(3), 3162-3173.

Lindner, J. R. (2018). The Importance of Understanding the Technology that Serves Us. Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography, 31(7), A27-A28.

Litchfield, A., & Khan, A. (2019). A review of issues in healthcare information management systems and blockchain solutions. In International Conference on Information Resources Management (Vol. 1). Association for Information Systems (AIS).

Littlewood, D. C., and Kiyumbu, W. L. (2017) ‘”Hub” organizations in Kenya: What are they? What do they do? And what is their potential?’, Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Elsevier, (September), pp. 0–1. DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2017.09.031.

Loeber, L. (2017). The use of technology in the election process: Who governs? Second In, 187. LWV, V., Porte, J., & MAL, L. A. A. (2019). Early Voting.

Luther, W. J. (2016) ‘Cryptocurrencies, Network Effects, and Switching Costs’, Contemporary Economic Policy, 34(3), pp. 553–571. DOI: 10.1111/coep.12151.

Luu, L. et al. (2016) ‘Making Smart Contracts Smarter’, Proceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security – CCS’16, pp. 254–269. DOI: 10.1145/2976749.2978309.

M. Shamos and A. Yasinsac, “Realities of E-voting Security”, in IEEE Security & Privacy, vol. 10, no. 5, pp. 16-17, Sept.-Oct. 2012. doi: 10.1109/MSP.2012.124

Magnet, S 2011, When biometrics fail: Gender, race, and the technology of identity, Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina.

Mahtab Alam, Mukhtar Opeyemi Yusuf, and Nazifi Alhassan Sani. Blockchain technology for electoral process in africa: a short review. International Journal of Information Technology, pages 1–7, 2020.

Makutsa, P. (2010) ‘Land grab in Kenya: Implications for smallholder farmers’, Eastern Africa Farmers Federation, pp. 1–38. Available at: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Makutsa%2C+P+%282010%29&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5#0.

Malone, D. and O’Dwyer, K. J. (2014) ‘Bitcoin Mining and its Energy Footprint’, 25th IET Irish Signals & Systems Conference 2014 and 2014 China-Ireland International Conference on Information and Communities Technologies (ISSC 2014/CIICT 2014), pp. 280–285. DOI: 10.1049/cp.2014.0699.

Marjorie, O. P., Reuben, J., & Awiti, R. (2015). Biometric voter registration and electronic voter identification system on credibility of the electoral system in Kenya a case study of Nairobi County. Education, 2019.

Marquer, S. (2017) XRP Ledger Decentralizes Further With Expansion to 55 Validator Nodes | Ripple. Available at: https://ripple.com/insights/xrp-ledger-decentralizes-expansion-55-validator-nodes/ (Accessed: 22 December 2017).

Matsusaka, J 1993, ‘Election closeness and voter turnout: Evidence from California ballot propositions’, Public Choice, vol. 76, pp. 313–334.

Mattila, J. (2016) ‘The disruptive potential of Distributed Consensus Architectures’. DOI: 10.1098/rsnr.2016.0036.

Micheni, E., & Murumba, J. (2018, May). The Role of ICT in Electoral Processes: Case of Kenya. In 2018 IST-Africa Week Conference (IST-Africa) (pp. Page-1). IEEE.

Micheni, E., & Murumba, J. (2018, May). The role of ICT in electoral processes: case of Kenya. In 2018 IST-Africa Week Conference (IST-Africa) (pp. Page-1). IEEE.

Miencha, I. O. et al. (2015) ‘Efficiency measurement of Kenyan commercial banks’, Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 6(4S2), pp. 621–631. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4s2p621.

Min, H. (2019). Blockchain technology for enhancing supply chain resilience. Business Horizons, 62(1), 35-45.

Ministry of Information Communication and Technology (2007) ‘Kenya Vision 2030’.

Ministry of Information Communication and Technology (2014) ‘The Kenya National ICT master plan’.

Mizrahi, A. (2015) ‘A blockchain-based Property Ownership Recording System’, ChromaWay.

Momani, A., & Jamous, M. (2017). The Evolution of Technology Acceptance Theories, International Journal of Contemporary Computer Research (IJCCR), Vol 1, 50-58.

Moody’s (2016) Rating Action: Moody’s affirms Kenya’s B1 sovereign rating, maintains a stable outlook. Available at: https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-affirms-Kenyas-B1-sovereignrating-maintains-stable-outlook–PR_343617 (Accessed: 22 December 2017).

Mugica, A 2015, ‘The Case for Election Technology’, European View, vol. 14, pp.111–19.

N. Goderdzishvili, E. Gordadze, and N. Gagnidze, “Georgia’s Blockchain-powered Property Registration: Never blocked, Always Secured – Ownership

N. Pippa and M. Grömpix, “Populist threats to electoral integrity: the year in elections, 2016-2017,” 2017.

Ndemo, B., & Weiss, T. (2017). Making sense of Africa’s emerging digital transformation and its many futures. Africa Journal of Management, 3(3-4), 328-347.

Ndungu, J. (2020). An E-voting System Based on Blockchain Technology:(A Case Study Kenya Elections) (Doctoral dissertation, University of Nairobi).

Nespeca, V., Meesters, K., Comes, T., Boersma, K., & Tomaszewski, B. (2018). Evaluating Platforms for Community Sense-making: Using the Case of the Kenyan Elections. In ISCRAM.

Norris, P., Cameron, S., & Wynter, T. (Eds.). (2018). Electoral Integrity in America: Securing Democracy. Oxford University Press, USA.

Nowostawski, M. (2017). Blockchain and Autonomous Institutions. Blockchain Engineering, 28.

Nwangwu, C 2015, Biometric Voting Technology and the 2015 General Elections in Nigeria, Paper Presented at Two-Day National Conference on ‘The 2015 General Elections in Nigeria: The Real Issues’ organized by The Electoral Institute 27th and 28th July.

Nyiha, A., Wanjau, M., & Mwandware, D. (2018). Smart democracies in Africa: legitimizing Kenyan elections through blockchain technology.

Nyiha, A., Wanjau, M., & Mwandware, D. (2018). Smart democracies in Africa: legitimizing Kenyan elections through block-chain technology.

Odaudu, S. N., Imeh, U. J., & Abubakar, U. (2019, December). BIDS: Blockchain Based Intrusion Detection System for Electoral Process. In 2019 15th International Conference on Electronics, Computer and Computation (ICECCO) (pp. 1-15). IEEE.

Okokpujie, K. O., John, S. N., Noma-Osaghae, E., Ndujiuba, C., & Okokpujie, I. P. (2019). An Enhanced Voters Registration and Authentication Application Using Iris Recognition Technology. International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology (IJCIET), 10(2),57-68.

Olurode, L 2017, ‘Technology and Election Conundrum: A Case Study of Nigeria’ Sociology and Anthropology, vol. 5, no. 10, pp. 799–811.

Oluwatobi, A. N., Ayeni, T. P., Arulogun, T. O., Ariyo, A. A., & Aderonke, K. A. Exploring the Use of Biometric Smart Cards for Voters’ Accreditation: A Case Study of Nigeria Electoral Process.

Ongoya, Z. E., & Otieno, W. E. (2012). Handbook on Kenya’s Electoral Laws and Systems: Highlights of the Electoral Laws and System established by and under the Constitution of Kenya 2010 and other Statutes.

Orodho, A. J., & Kombo, D. K. (2002). Research methods. Nairobi: Kenyatta University, Institute of Open Learning.

Osgood, R. (2016). The future of democracy: Blockchain voting. COMP116: Information security, 1-21.

Outchakoucht, A., Hamza, E. S., & Leroy, J. P. (2017). Dynamic access control policy based on blockchain and machine learning for the internet of things. Int. J. Adv. Comput. Sci. Appl, 8(7), 417-424.

Ozisik, A. P., Andresen, G., Bissias, G., Houmansadr, A., & Levine, B. N. (2016). A secure, efficient, and transparent network architecture for bitcoin. UMass Amherst, Tech. Rep. UM-CS-2016–006.

P. Norris, F. Martínez i Coma, A. Nai and M. Grömping, “The year in elections, mid-2016 update,” 2016.

P. Norris, T. Wynter, and S. Cameron, “Corruption and Coercion: The Year in Elections 2017.,” 2018.

P. Norris, T. Wynter, and S. Cameron, “Electoral Integrity & Campaign Media. The Electoral Integrity Project 2018 mid-year update.,” 2018.

P. Norris, T. Wynter, M. Grömping and S. M. Cameron, “The year in elections, 2017 mid-year update,” 2017.

P. Norris, Why Electoral Integrity Matters, Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2014.

Penar, P., Aiko, R., Bentley, T., & Han, K. (2016). Election Quality, Public Trust are Central Issues for Africa’s Upcoming Contests.

Peter, F. (2017). Political Legitimacy. (E. N. Zalta, Editor) Retrieved from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legitimacy/

Pilkington, M. (2016). Blockchain technology: principles and applications. In Research handbook on digital transformations. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Poblet, M. (2017). Towards a Taxonomy of Crowd-civic Systems.

Politou, E., Alepis, E., & Patsakis, C. (2018). Forgetting personal data and revoking consent under the GDPR: Challenges and proposed solutions. Journal of Cybersecurity, 4(1), tyy001.

Quaye, S. J., Harper, S. R., & Pendakur, S. L. (Eds.). (2019). Student engagement in higher education: Theoretical perspectives and practical approaches for diverse populations. Routledge.

recovery scheme for health blockchain keys. In 2017 IEEE 13TH International Symposium on the autonomous decentralized system (ISADS) (pp. 229-234). IEEE

Representation in Asia, Africa and Latin America, CLASCO Books, Buenos Aires.

Riany, K. G. (2021). Influence of E-Government Strategies on Public Service Delivery of State Agencies in Kenya: The Moderating Effect of Strategy Execution (Doctoral dissertation, JKUAT-COHRED).

Riker, W & Ordeshook, PC 1968, ‘A Theory of the Calculus of Voting’, American Political Science Review, vol. 62, no. 1, pp. 25–42.

Roseman, Jr., GH & Stephenson, EF 2005, ‘The Effect of Voting Technology on Voter Turnout: Do Computers Scare the Elderly?’, Public Choice, vol. 123, pp. 39–47.

Rosenberg, JS & Chen, M 2009, Expanding Democracy: Voter Registration around the World, Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, Available at

Rothenberg, D. (2018). STS 308-001: Technology and Global Development.

Rothstein, B. (2009). Creating Political Legitimacy: Electoral Democracy Versus Quality of Government. American Behavioral Scientist, 50(3), 311-330.

S. I. Ben Dhaou and I. K. Rohman, “Everything and its opposite: Socioeconomic implications of Blockchain technology: Case of monetary policy,” ICEGOV ’18 Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, pp. 631-639, 2018.

S. Ibrahim, M. Kamat, M. Salleh, and S.R.A. Aziz, “Secure E-voting with Blind Signature”, Proceedings of the 2003 4th National Conference of Telecommunication Technology, (NCTT2003), pp. 193-197, 2003. DOI: 10.1109/NCTT.2003.1188334

Saleem, K., Shahzad, B., Orgun, M. A., Al-Muhtadi, J., Rodrigues, J. J., & Zakariah, M. (2017). Design and deployment challenges in immersive and wearable technologies. Behaviour & Information Technology, 36(7), 687-698.

Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2012). Research methods for business students (6. utg.). Harlow: Pearson.

Schatzberg, M. G. (1993). Power, Legitimacy, and ‘Democratisation’ in Africa. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 445-461.

Schermers, A. C. (2018). Blockchain for Development (Bachelor’s thesis).

Scott A McKinney, Rachel Landy, and Rachel Wilka. Smart contracts, blockchain, and the next frontier of transactional law. Wash. JL Tech. & Arts, 13:313, 2017.

Shachar, R & Nalebuff, B 1999, ‘Follow the leader: Theory and evidence on political participation’, American Economic Review, vol. 89, pp. 525–547.

Shafagh, H., Burkhalter, L., Hithnawi, A., & Duquennoy, S. (2017, November). Towards blockchain-based auditable storage and sharing of IoT data. In Proceedings of 2017 on Cloud Computing Security Workshop (pp. 45-50).

Shahzad, F., Xiu,G.Y., Wang, J., Shahbaz, M. (2018, May). An empirical investigation on the adoption of cryptocurrencies among the people of mainland China (Vol. 55, p. 33-40). Technology in Society.

Sharma, S. K. (2017). The 2017 general election in Kenya: Re-evaluating R2P’s first test case 10 years on. Global Responsibility to Protect, 9(4), 345-365.

Shetty, S., Red, V., Kamhoua, C., Kwiat, K., & Njilla, L. (2017, May). Data provenance assurance in the cloud using blockchain. In Disruptive Technologies in Sensors and Sensor Systems (Vol. 10206, p. 1020601). International Society for Optics and Photonics.

Slack, JD & Wise, JM 2005, Culture+ technology: A primer, Peter Lang Publishing Group, Bern.

Solijonov, A. (2016). Voter turnout trends around the world. IDEA.

Srikrishnaswetha, K., Kumar, S., & Ghai, D. (2020). Secured electronic voting machine using a biometric technique with unique identity number and iot. Innovations in electronics and communication engineering. Springer, 311-326.

Susskind, J. (2017). Decrypting democracy: Incentivizing blockchain voting technology for an improved election system. San Diego L. Rev., 54, 785.

Swan, M. (2015). Blockchain thinking: The brain as a decentralized autonomous corporation [commentary]. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 34(4), 41-52.

Swan, M. (2015). Blockchain: Blueprint for a new economy. ” O’Reilly Media, Inc.”.

Swan, M. (2015). Blockchain: Blueprint for a new economy. “ O’Reilly Media, Inc.”.

Systems Ltd., White paper, 2017, Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/da8a/37b10bc1521a4d3de925d7ebc44bb606d740.pdf2017, on 20 March 2018.Access Journal, vol. 10, no.3, pp. 1-18, Mar 1, 2018. doi:10.3390/su10030658

Tapscott, D., & Tapscott, A. (2017). How blockchain will change organizations. MIT Sloan Management Review, 58(2), 10.

Thakur, S. (2015). E-voting: India and the Philippines–a comparative analysis for possible adaptation in Africa. In Emerging Issues and Prospects in African E-Government (pp. 28-55). IGI Global.

Tian, F. (2016, June). An agri-food supply chain traceability system for China based on RFID & blockchain technology. In 2016 13th international conference on service systems and service management (ICSSSM) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.

Tosh, D. K., Shetty, S., Liang, X., Kamhoua, C. A., Kwiat, K. A., & Njilla, L. (2017, May)> Security implications of blockchain cloud with analysis of block withholding attack. In 2017 17th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Grid Computing (CCGRID) (pp. 458-467). IEEE.

Uludag, U, Pankanti, S, Prabhakhar, S & Jain, AK 2004, ‘Biometric Cryptosystems:Issues and Challenges’, Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 92, pp. 948–960.

UNDP, Electoral Assistance Implementation Guide, 2009.

Van Holsteyn, J. J. (2018). The Dutch parliamentary elections of March 2017. West European Politics, 41(6), 1364-1377.

Venkatesh, V., Morris, M., Davis, G., & Davis, F. (2003). User Acceptance of Information Technology: Toward a Unified View. MIS Quarterly, 27(3), 425-478.von Borzyskowski, I. (2019). The credibility challenge: How democracy aid influences election violence. Cornell University Press.

Wang, L., Basin, M. V., Li, H., & Lu, R. (2017). Observer-based composite adaptive fuzzy control for nonstrict-feedback systems with actuator failures. IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems, 26(4), 2336-2347.

Wanyande, P. (2003). Reflections on electoral system and practice in Kenya.

Winner, L 1989, The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Wolchok, S., Wustrow, E., Halderman, J. A., Prasad, H. K., Kankipati, A., Sakhamuri, S. K., … & Gonggrijp, R. (2010, October). Security analysis of India’s electronic voting machines. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer and communications security (pp. 1-14).

Wolf, P., Alim, A., Kasaro, B., Namugera, P., & Saneem, M. (2017). Introducing Biometric Technology in Elections. Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.

Yahaya, J.U., & Bello, M.M. (2020). Ethno-Religious Factor and the Menace of Election Violence in Nigeria.

Yeoh, P. (2017). Regulatory issues in blockchain technology. Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance.

Yue, L., Junqin, H., Shengzhi, Q., & Ruijin, W. (2017, August). The big data model of security sharing is based on blockchain. In 2017 3rd International Conference on Big Data Computing and Communications (BIGCOM) (pp. 117-121). IEEE.

Zhao, H., Zhang, Y., Peng, Y., & Xu, R. (2017, March). Lightweight backup and efficient

Zhao, J. L., Fan, S., & Yan, J. (2016). Overview of business innovations and research opportunities in blockchain and introduction to the special issue.

Zyskind, G., & Nathan, O. (2015, May). Decentralizing privacy. Using blockchain to protect personal data. In 2015 IEEE Sec

Table of Contents

Hashing Algorithms

Leave a Reply Cancel reply