Many people have asked: can blockchain technology help provide answers to challenges that typically have suffered from lack of technology,

很多人曾问过 区块链技术能否解决因技术缺乏

or that has suffered from poor technology applications.

或技术较差而遇到的挑战

One of those being the way that voting works in the United States.

其中一个挑战就是美国的投票方式

I think of this in three distinct phases.

我觉得这要分三个阶段

There’s the phase before voting where keeping track of who is registered to vote and where they’re allowed to vote, it’s been harder than it should have been.

第一个阶段是投票前 需要追踪有哪些人登记投票 以及他们可以在哪里投票 这一点越来越难了

We have a lot of examples of people showing up at polling places and being denied the right to vote

很多人到了投票站却发现自己无权投票 这种情况屡见不鲜

and it seems like paperwork goes missing and people get removed from voting roles, that sort of thing.

其实就是因为纸质文件弄丢了 人们不知道自己已经无权投票之类的问题

A public ledger that tracked who was registered to vote where and allowed people to look at that from their home machine

人们需要一种公薄报 来追踪哪些人有登记投票以及可以在哪里投票 并且让他们在家就能获得这些信息

and then confirm that when they showed up at the poll, would do a lot to reestablish trust in the process of registering to vote

等到了投票站后进行信息确认 这样就可以重建投票过程中的信任

and validating that everybody who is entitled to vote is able to do that, providing an independent verification of that.

还能确认让有权投票的人可以投票 为其提供独立验证

There’s a second phase I’ll get to in a bit, but there’s a third phase, which is after the vote,

第二个阶段我稍后再说 不过第三个阶段就是投票后

when you’re taking the totals that come from a polling place, that come from vote by mail for example in Oregon.

当你收集某一投票站的所有投票 比如说俄勒冈各处寄来的邮件

We have to kind of trust that the system works.

我们得相信系统是有作用的

We have to hope that everything is counted correctly at the local level and then it’s totaled up correctly at the state level and then reported nationally et cetera.

我们不得不希望地方能把票数都统计对 各州也能把数据统计对 然后在全国报道

And we’re fortunately at a point where the basis of that trust hasn’t been violated yet, but in many countries it is.

幸运的是 现在我们的这种基础信任还没有崩塌 但很多国家的选民已不再相信投票系统了

In many countries there’s not a lot of confidence that the total from a polling place is accurately summed up.

在很多国家 人们不太相信投票站的总票数计数正确

So using a distributed ledger not to track the individual votes but to track the totals from each of the polling places would be a way to allow the public to understand:

所以不要利用分散账簿追踪个人投票 而是用它来追踪某一投票站的总票数 这或许可以让公众明白：

'Okay the local polling place I went and voted at is reporting a thousand votes, 500 for candidate X, 500 for candidate Y, that seems about right.

‘好 我投票的地方投票站报道有1000张投票 X候选人有500张 Y候选人500张 应该没什么问题

I don’t know if my vote specifically counted, but I know that at least the polling place I was at counted appropriately and they didn’t try to pretend they were 100,000 votes.'

我不知道自己的投票有没有计进去 但至少我知道我去的那个投票点计票还比较合理 并没有假装他们有10万名选民’

So at the beginning of that process and the tail end of that process using a public distributed ledger to record that makes a lot of sense.

所以使用分散账簿在投票过程开始和结束时追踪一下票数很合理

But in the middle, the actual act of walking into a booth and registering a vote,

但是在这中间 走进某个投票站登记投票

or a lot of people want to do voting by mobile device or by computer; I’m very worried about the digitization of that.

或者很多人想用手机或电脑投票 我很担心投票过程的数字化

Our computers fail us all the time and malware and other threats could really step in

我们的电脑经常出故障 恶意软件和其他威胁也随时会出现

and make it so that I think I’m voting for one candidate but it gets recorded for another.

让我们觉得投的是自己想投的候选人 但实际票却投给了别人

And we have to think, in the United States, we care quite a bit about the confidentiality of our vote even to the point where I get no receipt,

我们得想想 在美国 我们非常在意投票的机密性 以至于我们拿不到收据

I can’t go to a bar and prove that I voted for somebody and get a discount for it—that would be considered bribery.

我不能去酒吧说我给谁投票了 从而请求打个折扣 这会被当成贿赂行为

So we can’t simply come up with a system that puts all the original votes into a public ledger

所以我们不能只是简单地想出一种系统 把所有最初的投票都放在公薄报里

and provides proof that somebody voted a certain way or that becomes a corruptive process.

用以证明某人用某种方式投了票 否则这就成了腐败过程

So I think we still need voter-verified paper ballots as a path to auditing,

所以我觉得我们依然需要证实投票人的纸质选票进行审计

but with the registration at the beginning and the summing at the end conducted by a public ledger

不过可以在开始登记时和最后统计时使用公薄报

I think we would do a tremendous amount to reestablish confidence in the voting system.

为了重建人们对投票系统的信任 我们要做的还有很多