Why?
Whilst the number of people with access to political elections has been growing constantly over the past century, new questions have arisen regarding the guarantees in place to protect the voters’ true freedom of choice.
The once clear distinction between dictatorships and democracies has become blurred by a number of regimes which seek to maintain the appearance of democracy whilst effectively suppressing their citizens’ essential rights, including the very right of being able to freely elect their political representatives.
Democracy must be sustained by strong pillars. These start with the basic respect for human rights and include the very system itself required to democratically elect political representatives who are accountable to the people. As a result of the people’s free choice, these fundamental conditions naturally lead to free political alternation.
Concepts such as “Illiberal democracies” have starting to flourish around the world in recent years. Should any of these forces succeed in undermining any one of these foundation principals, the whole edifice will sway and ultimately collapse. There is no such thing as in “Illiberal democracy”.
It is our conviction that, of all of the pillars supporting freedom, to right to vote is the very cornerstone of democracy. As long as one can choose their political representatives without fear or manipulation there is always the opportunity to peacefully build a truly democratic society.
What do we do about it?
At Protected Voting, we believe that the recent advancements in cryptography and decentralised ledger technologies have now made it possible to build a truly world class electronic voting system that is secure, anonymous and above all transparent. Our vision is agnostic to the electoral system itself but seeks to create a rock solid foundation stone from which the pillars of democracies can be built. It is therefore complementary to electoral reform projects. We believe that there is common ground between our path and that of those seeking to improve electoral systems themselves.
The Protected Voting Foundation will pioneer the project by funding academic research programmes, developing leading edge solutions and sustaining long term development efforts in order to turn our vision into a reality. By making use of powerful technologies, we will establish a system that provides the necessary safeguards to implement secure, transparent and independent free elections. We seek to set the standard and to create and enforce the certifications necessary to command voter confidence.
We believe that in order to achieve our mission, our first foundation stone must be one of transparency ourselves. It is for this reason that our Foundation must be not for profit : an incorporated, registered charity which will be controled and audited as such. Only a charity can fulfil the goals of transparency, independence and governance required to set the standards of voter protection.
Please refer to our Who we are page to better understand how being a charity is not just desirable but is indeed the must-have foundation stone of our cause.
How can you help?
We can only be successful by working together. Our Foundation is only the rallying point, the catalyst for change; it cannot achieve its ambitious purpose without an active community participating and taking the initiative. We intend to propose a number of projects and campaigns. With your contribution we can make this bold initiative come to life by moving forward with our ambitious objective
The Get Involved section of of this portal will allow anyone to find a way to participate; by raising awareness, by contributing to a campaign, by providing research material or by applying for one of our scholarships or becoming part of our open source developer community.
Financial contributions are also necessary for our purpose. The Protected Voting initiative is open to individual and also corporate funding. Contributions can be dedicated to a specific action or campaign or pledged to help Protected Voting set up a fully functional organisation. You will find all relevant information under the Donate or Contribute page. We look forward to welcoming you to our organisation.