Australia's new political party is very fashionable and promotes blockchain election mechanism

Editor's note: Although there are precedents for blockchain applications in political elections or voting, the Ukrainian government announced the creation of a blockchain-based government system in November last year, and in February this year, Nasdaq announced the development of a shareholder electronic voting system based on blockchain technology at the Nasdaq OMX Tallinn Stock Exchange in Estonia. However, from a global perspective, the application of blockchain in the field of elections is still rare, so Australia's 'Flux Party' is at the forefront of this technology application.

The picture shows Max Kaye, one of the party's founders, explaining his philosophy to reporters.

A newly formed political party in Australia, the Flux Party, is vigorously promoting the use of a token election system based on the decentralized blockchain concept.

According to Reuters, the Flux Party has attracted more than 500 members and submitted registration documents to the Australian Electoral Commission last month after gaining the necessary support from about 550 registered voters. Its website currently sets its membership at 1,009.

Notably, the party does not confine its members to its own policies, but gives members the freedom to choose to vote for or against legislation.

麦克斯•凯, one of the party's founders, said:

"They don't have to be senators, they could just be software or machines because their only purpose is to do what the people want them to do."

During elections, party members and those who support the party will receive this Bitcoin-like token. After obtaining the token, they can use it directly to vote, trade it with others, or give it to a trusted third party for proxy voting.

Max Kay told Reuters that the current democratic system is too outdated in the Internet age. In fact, government officials cannot have expertise on all issues, but they are still trusted to make decisions on major issues affecting the environment and monetary policy.

The party's goal is to create a system in which large numbers of voters can effectively vote for experts, such as scientists or economists, who have expertise on certain issues.

The party calls the system "a dimension of the redistribution of political power":

“Our current political system doesn’t work very well, and politicians often stand in the way of implementing some policies. Flux’s system is an incremental step toward democracy, designed to redistribute political power, maximize participation, remove bad policies, and strengthen the power of voters.”

Doubts

阿德里安•李博士, a bitcoin expert at the University of Technology Sydney, said bitcoin's power comes from its ability to build trust through mathematical verification, removing human frailty. However, he said:

“I haven’t seen a political party vote on the blockchain yet. If you replaced politicians with these ‘bitcoin machines,’ maybe that would work, but you can’t do that because there’s no legally binding mechanism to guide the votes of Flux members.”

彼得•陈Chen, a senior lecturer in politics at Sydney University, described the party as a group of "jolly naive people". He said attempts to apply the transformative power of the internet to democracy were not new.

“They are still a modern version of the existing system: a utopian political system design.”

Original article: http://www.coindesk.com/australian-political-party-blockchain-voting/
By Daniel Palmer
Translator: printemps
Editor: printemps
Source (translation): Babbitt Information (http://www.8btc.com/blockchain-voting)