As the world becomes more concerned about election security and transparency, securing the storage of election data has become even more important than it was previously. Election data is an essential fuel for our democracy; tracking everything from registrations to live results and reports of suspected irregularities (Almond 2023). However, these information security has been hindered in traditional centralized storage solutions. A better way is Decentralized storage projects, which enables truth in data through transparent cryptographic technology introducing higher degree of reliability of the stored data and a persistent, verifiable auditory trail of how the election was operated.
Centralized Election Data Storage Is Not the Solution
Although storing election data on centralized servers is very common practice, it comes with specific risks. Centralized storage systems: These are typically owned by a government agency, civil society organization or third-party platform. According to Daniel Duke Odongo of Ushahidi, such systems could be compromised as potential threats including technical failures such as failed deployments and downtime, cyberattacks by malicious attackers looking to overwhelm a network or web service with traffic; and unauthorized data manipulation. Moreover, older storages cannot deliver required data protection guarantees that are the basis of safety like cryptographic signatures and audit trails, this makes undetectable modifications exist as well ruining public trust in democratic process.
As Nathan Freitas from The Guardian Project states “Centralized data is really easy to breach just based on a filename or path location” But as digital records have had their insistence over time and as the evergreen vulnerabilities remain alive, it becomes all the more imperative that better storage mechanisms which can withstand attacks should come into play to retain the sanctity of election data.
Decentralized storage Projects: the essential element to save election data
Decentralized storage has been designed to bypass the issues of centralized systems. Decentralized storage protects against localized data tampering or loss through disruption by distributing data across a node network. Initiatives like the “Election Data Resilience Initiative” from Ushahidi and Numbers Protocol are already leading the charge and leveraging decentralized storage networks like Filecoin to store election data in a way that is accessible.
Unlike a single server or cloud system, Filecoin is based on a decentralized network that utilizes cryptographic hashing and content addressing to make it obvious if anyone attempts unauthorized changes to any data. This decentralized schema outsources information via a set of nodes, lowering the dependence upon one single point of failure, which would aim for more resiliency. In politically sensitive contexts, decentralized storage gives the immutable records of data that help maintain security and verifiability for elections.
Example: The Resilience Initiative for Election Data
Ushahidi is piloting the “Election Data Resilience Initiative” in Kenya, storing crowd-sourced election reports on Filecoin’s decentralized network. Its objective is to enable civil society, researchers, and the public at large to engage with electoral data in a safe and purposeful manner. Through IronPort and MySQL, Ushahidi expects to trial this methodology with domestic election watching groups to develop a flexible and solid election recording system. The pilot program not only mitigates operational challenges but also informs on the reliability of the platform to help inform best practices on a large scale.
It is this engaged community effort that embodies a new way to think about election data management—one of accountability and transparency. This ensures accountability between governing bodies and stakeholders by making the electoral data fully accessible as well as secure through a more reliable approach to managing the democratic process.
Using Decentralized Storage to Fight Election Misinformation
And this is another area where decentralized storage has a key role to play in tackling misinformation, an increasing issue during election coverage. To stop manipulated media from polluting the information ecosystem, we rely on Filecoin’s decentralized network to authenticate election-related images through the Numbers Protocol. The Numbers Protocol provides a unique return path to keep media content visible and secure through assigning individual blockchain-based digital identities to images. For instance, during Taiwan’s 2024 election, the Numbers Protocol worked with local press companies to validate campaign material while providing a resource to combat misinformation via digital provenance.
This initiative is a model for how decentralized storage can enable trust in media coverage of elections by guaranteeing the integrity of material connected to election events. The Numbers Protocol offers a Capture App that allows users to document major election happenings and attaches embedded metadata, which is then stored immutably on the blockchain. These efforts allude to the very promise of decentralized storage, utilizing transparency, and combating false information in the mass electronic era.
Obstacles and Looking Ahead For Decentralized Holding Of Election Data
Decentralized storage comes with many advantages, but there are a few obstacles to generalized adoption. As exampled by Duke Odongo while writing for the ERC20 token of Blockchain HK, decentralized solutions may not work in such regions with the limited digital infrastructure. Ushahidi is looking into hybrid models that store locally for access when data is offline while also syncing periodically to decentralized cloud storage. This is a resilient model, and it can maintain data availability in cases where the internet access between regions is not stable.
Additionally, following regulatory frameworks is another challenge. According to Sofia Yan, co-founder of Numbers Protocol, decentralized systems have to abide by local laws, particularly in the case where emergent technologies such as deepfakes and generative AI are still evolving. Regulation is key for the widespread adoption and scaling of decentralized electoral data.
But the decentralized storage solution is gaining traction, particularly when faced with these challenges. As an example, what the Filecoin Foundation does is educate election authorities about how decentralized storage allows for a transparent election process accountable to citizens. Cryptography and distributed systems are developing even better ways to verify data, promising decentralized storage as a long-term answer, says Clara Tsao from the Filecoin Foundation.
