[donaltroddyn]

It's certainly not a ridiculous argument. Anonymity is a cornerstone of fair voting systems, and any system that allows votes to be deanonymised increases the risk of coercion.

The same type of risk applies to postal voting, although with less severity, as with postal voting there is only one opportunity to check the coerced vote. Blockchain based votes can be checked after the fact.

Still, for this reason, postal voting is rare, and most countries that allow it do so only for citizens living abroad or who cannot travel to a polling station die to injury or illness.

Countries like the UK and Australia that allow any eligible voter to do so by mail are rare.

[Ekaros]

For example the system used for postal voting or more exactly early voting in Finland is one where there is time period(around week) when voters can vote in any early voting location around country, or in such places like embassies around the world.

The process is same as regular voting. Only difference is that vote is enclosed in envelope which is enclosed in second envelope and shipped to voting precinct to be opened later and counted with rest of the votes. During the voting process identity of voter is verified.

There is some risks here, but there really isn't much to fix that. In the end if you trust enough the step between voting and shipping votes it's very decent. Anonymity is there and also voter is verified.

[sebmellen]

The results of blockchain-based elections can be checked after the fact, that's true. But if the votes of the individuals in the electorate can be checked after the fact, the system was badly architected. The USPS solution linked by OP does not link the identity of a voter to their blockchain identity, so coercion remains as much of a threat as in postal voting.

Blockchain-based voting systems can be either the least or the most anonymous voting systems. Electronic voting allows the abstraction of many voter-suppression tactics which are still in play in the US.

I may have misjudged the audience, because the postal voting argument is very US centric, at a time when the prevailing media narrative is that postal voting is an essentially infallible system which should not be questioned. I would find it hypocritical if people strongly supported mail-in voting while not considering that blockchain-based voting carries similar advantages and risks (which is why the USPS proposed this, I'm sure).

If you read my other comments in this thread, you'll see I'm not in favor of implementing a blockchain-based voting system yet. I just think the above argument was made from a fundamental misunderstanding of blockchain technology.

[Yetanfou]

> I just think the above argument was made from a fundamental misunderstanding of blockchain technology.

It isn't blockchain which is the problem but wide-spread absentee voting. It doesn't matter whether this is done through mail-in voting, through some blockchain-based app or site, phone-in voting or anything else. The problem is that the person casting the vote can not be assured to do so with privacy and without coercion.

[donaltroddyn]

> I just think the above argument was made from a fundamental misunderstanding of blockchain technology.

Which misunderstanding of blockchains/merkle trees do you believe has caused the argument above to be incorrect?

The system as described in the patent provides no protection that I can see against voter coercion, and in some embodiments, allows a voter to verify that their vote has been counted as cast, which is significantly more ripe for abuse than in-person or even postal voting.

I did read your other comments in this thread, but it seems to me that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of blockchain technology and the problems that it can solve. Your proposed right-to-vote token solution is worse in every way than paper ballots cast in-person at polling stations with private areas, counted by hand in publicly observable count centres.