- How blockchain can enhance the trustworthiness of surveys

Blockchain’s open record and tamper proof system solves the problem of trust. Surveys’ questions and answers recorded on blockchain can be verified and monitored by the public, ensuring that they remain unchanged at the time the survey is carried out and after it is completed. This would improve the trustworthiness of surveys, which is particularly important in pre-election polls and politicians’ approval ratings, which may influence people’s viewpoint and their choices. Moreover, respondents can answer questions at their leisure time when riding on a bus or at a coffee shop; this will boost surveys response rate, which would improve the credibility of surveys or public opinion polls.

- Blockchain Application in Voting

As well as federal or provincial level elections, there are all sorts of group decisions involved in communities and companies in our daily life. Issues such as development, conservation and provision of public facilities require community deliberation and consensus-forming. Voting to choose boards of directors for companies, condominiums and other bodies are also very practical applications. We see a great demand for new methods of voting that bring efficiencies, boost turnout rate, reduce the chances of frauds, and enhance democratic participation.

- Voting for Boards of Directors and Management in Condominiums

As voting can be done at any place and any time, and the data integrity is ensured, we foresee greater involvement by residents in the details of property management. This can allow residents to choose the interior decor of common areas, appointment of management company, etc., with the majority able to decide. In this way, residents can have more control, and the board of directors’ role will be more focused on coordination and execution of residents’ choices.

- Voting for Business

During the process of preparing this white paper, the world is hard hit by COVID pandemic. Never before, world cities were locked down, and countries' borders were shut down. Employees were required to work from home. Executives and world leaders held conferences online. After business conferences and negotiations, officers or various parties need to make decisions by voting. How can we ascertain that the person conferenced on the Zoom screen or Google Meet screen is the same person who cast the ballot? The authenticity of voting can be questionable. Therefore, developing an accountable electronic voting system is the next big step for making business deals.

Volitium vs. Ordinary Website Voting/Survey Platform

Volitium vs. Ethereum Voting DAPP

Voting or surveys can take place on Facebook or some simple apps. Simple surveys or voting such as “how do I look today?” or “where do we want to hang out for the night” are always conducted among friends and only take a few minutes to reach consensus. No one would want to spend money to take these kinds of simple surveys. These are not valuable voting and surveys. There are operating costs in maintaining decentralized blockchain and nodes. Transaction fees are paid to the network of nodes for verification of records before multiple copies are disseminated across the network and become immutable. This mechanism automatically filtrates votings and surveys which collect opinions that are valuable. Records on blockchain are a proof of authorisation by majority through a trustworthy process. They represent power to affect the allocation of resources, which is where the value is. Value can also be created by cost cutting and improving quality and efficiency.

Pre-election surveys provide valuable information indicating electorates’ preferences ahead of an election. Candidates usually revise their advertising strategies to get more votes. Surveys conducted on the Volitium voting platform allows respondents to take surveys in their free time, and receive rewards immediately after replying to the surveys. Survey results can be presented in real time. All these increase efficiency, and save time and costs. Survey response rates can be boosted. With blockchain’s transparency, people can verify questions and answers of surveys, which will prevent rigged results. A survey reveals a result closest to the real situation and increases the predictability of an election outcome. Mega corporations and political parties pay millions of dollars to data analysis companies like Cambridge Analytics to observe voters' political tendencies and try to manipulate the outcome of the election. A reliable pre-election survey is valuable.

This also applies to electing boards of directors in a condominium or a company. The transparency of blockchain records will help to reduce chances of corruption. In addition, the use of proxies will be unnecessary, as people can vote anywhere and anytime within the time frame for the voting. As the convenience and efficiency in voting improve, residents and shareholders will likely be involved more in managing a condominium or a company. This in turn will improve the quality of management, which then saves money for residents and shareholders.

As mentioned at the beginning of this paper, we will kickstart the use of the Volitium platform by forming an Opinion Based Rating System which itself will generate value for Volitium. Consider this: people make money by having knowledge of market sentiment and expertise ratings; images that are closest to the truth or undisrupted information may help to reconcile antagonism or misunderstanding among communities, which are a social cost to a society.

In conclusion, users use the Volitium platform to extract opinions that give value. They may be opinions that help to improve the quality of products, services, or management in condominiums and companies. A better product would turn into monetary benefits for a company. An improvement in managing a property or a company may streamline costs. Eliminating middlemen not only reduces costs, but also reduces the chances of corruption and redundancy. All these turn into a gain in value and thus are valuable opinions. In order to ensure real opinions, it is Volitium’s mission to make ready tools that guarantee the truthfulness, secrecy, security and privacy of participants’ identities and the choices made.