Paper

Abstract

1. Introduction

DEF: 1 Title: The Social Smart Contract Author: @DemocracyEarth. Comments-Summary: No comments yet. Status: Active Type: Paper Created: 2017-06-08 License: MIT Replaces: 0

Our experience combining both the political and technological challenges of democracy led us to think and design around the notion of how we could build a political party using smart contracts, or rather a lightweight form of governance anyone can implement at a low cost. We began the development of [http://sovereign.software Sovereign], a '''''blockchain liquid democracy''''' that enables direct voting on issues as well as the ability to delegate voting power on specific topics to peers over a secure network without central authority. By operating with tokens signaled on a blockchain all votes become censorship resistant and immediate audit rights can be granted to every voter without needing to provide access to servers or private infrastructure, thus making the system open and transparent for all. Our work is driven by open source software development practices, and cooperates with key projects aiming to secure identity in decentralized environments, including efforts from [https://blockstack.org/blockstack_usenix16.pdf Blockstack], [http://civic.com Civic] and [https://whitepaper.uport.me/uPort_whitepaper_DRAFT20170221.pdf Consensys], among others.

Democratic processes seen during high-stakes elections are often prone to fraudulent behavior with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering ''gerrymandering''] becoming commonplace and a strong link between what the [https://www.ineteconomics.org/uploads/papers/WP_48_Ferguson_et_al.pdf major political parties spend and the percentage of votes they win]. In developing nations ballot boxes are removed, broken and even burned by large parties hoping to suppress the chances of smaller competitors.

2. Objective

On self sovereign human identity.

This project demonstrates how modern tools can be applied to a real-world Blockchain & Cloud Computing problem.

4. Technology Stack

5. System Requirements

General requirements for this technology stack — check the README for exact versions.

• See the project README for exact requirements
• Git (to clone the repository)

6. Installation & Setup

git clone https://github.com/DemocracyEarth/paper.git
cd paper

Full setup instructions are in the project README.

7. Future Enhancements

Suggested extensions you can add to make this your own project.

• Add a CI/CD pipeline with GitHub Actions
• Deploy to a public test network or cloud free tier
• Add monitoring and cost alerts

8. Viva / Review Questions

Common questions examiners ask for projects in this domain.

1. Why does this problem need a blockchain or cloud-native design?
2. Explain the smart contract / infrastructure components and how they interact.
3. How are gas costs or cloud costs kept under control?
4. How is the system secured (keys, IAM, access control)?
5. How would the solution scale to many more users?

9. Source Code & License

This project is developed by DemocracyEarth and published on GitHub under the MIT License. Please follow the license terms and credit the original author when you use or modify this code.