Perception of a blockchain-based voting
system among students aged 17–21
Abylay Bissary
Department of Intelligent Systems and Cybersecurity
Astana IT University
Astana, Kazakhstan
212476@astanait.edu.kz
Abstract—Blockchain technology has drawn a lot of interest
because of its potential uses in a number of industries, including
voting systems. This study investigates how students see voting
systems that are based on blockchain technology. Polls and inter-
views were conducted to gain insight into the variables influencing
students’ acceptance of blockchain technology for voting. The
results show that blockchain-based voting is strongly preferred
because of its perceived simplicity, security, and transparency.
Research can be interesting for students, IT professionals and
sociologists.
Index Terms—blockchain, electronic voting, technology accep-
tance
I. I NTRODUCTION
The implementation of blockchain technology into a number
of different fields has attracted a lot of attention in the current
technological landscape, especially when it comes to electronic
voting systems. Previous research has established that people
are comfortable dealing with blockchain technologies applied
to financial sphere [8-12]. Although, little study exists which
explores the technology acceptance of blockchain technology
applied to electronic voting process. Especially among the
students. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to fully com-
prehend and examine how the students views blockchain-based
applications, with an emphasis on various IT professionals.
The goal is to spot trends and differences in perceptions of
comprehension, trust, and concerns.
There are two primary questions of this study: 1. What
affects willingness or unwillingness of students to accept
blockchain technology for use in voting process? [Q1] 2. What
are the main issues and problems that the students think web
application that uses blockchain technology for voting system
could have? [Q2].
Although our research explores the perception of blockchain
voting system among young population establishing opinion of
the general population is beyond the scope of this study. This
paper first gives a brief overview of the methods applied to
do this research. Then in the Discussions section our findings
will be compared with the studies of others.
According to Bigini, Freschi, and Lattanzi, blockchain can
be defined as list of blocks essentially the data structures
which provide the distribution of information in a decen-
tralized manner, therefore in the absence of a central entity,
avoiding any tampering [1]. Alternatively, blockchain is a type
of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) that uses a peer-
to-peer (P2P) network to safeguard and record transactions
rather than a single or multiple servers; records are kept on
numerous interconnected systems that all store the same data
[2]. The technology known as blockchain offers availability
and integrity, enabling users inside the network to write, read,
and confirm transactions that are stored in a distributed ledger.
On the other hand, it prohibits the removal and alteration of
any information included in its ledger, including transactions
[3]. Therefore, it can be stated as relatively secure way of
transfer the data.
II. M ETHODS
The current study uses both qualitative and quantitative
analysis in order to gain insights into the topic. By deploying
a questionnaire, structured, numerical data is easily collected
and evaluated. Therefore it can revealing general patterns and
trends. Focus group interviews, on the other hand, provide in-
depth investigation of participants’ viewpoints, experiences,
and motives; this produces rich contextual understanding and
reveals nuanced insights that may be missed by using only
quantitative data.
The survey covered a wide range of demographic infor-
mation, including gender, age, educational background, and
university enrollment, in addition to potential issues and
preferences with blockchain technology in voting systems.
Respondents were also asked to rank their level of knowledge
about blockchain, its effect on voting security and trans-
parency, likelihood of fraud, confidence in its ability to prevent
tampering, value of anonymity, ease of use, willingness to use
blockchain for voting, preference over conventional methods,
impact of technological literacy on implementation success,
preparedness for learning blockchain voting, belief in the
significance of educational initiatives, and expectations for
future developments in blockchain voting technology.
A. Questionnaire
Seventeen students were asked about their understanding of
blockchain technology based voting system. In our survey we
had 21 questions.
People at the age of 19 and 20 were the majority of the
interviewees having reached 41% both (Fig 1). In contrast,

Fig. 1. Age and gender status of survey participants
Fig. 2. Educational background of respondents in percents
only about one tenth of the interviewees were at the age of
18.
All participants of both questionnaire and interviewees were
students of Astana IT University.
Only three out of 17 respondents were women (Figure 1).
So this clearly means that our sample may have not fully
represented the female students in survey. Three fourth of the
total sample were students of third year as shown at figure 3.
As can be seen from Figure 2 about a half of the responds
were from students studying Cyber Security. Moreover, about
Fig. 3. Course enrollment of survey participants in percents
Fig. 4. Blockchain awareness assessment
Fig. 5. Perception of blockchain technology’s security in voting process
a quarter of them were Software Engineer students and every
tenth answer was either Computer Science or Big data Student.
B. Focus Group Interview
We conducted the interview where the number of people
taking part in the interview was 4. Their age was 19 and 20.
All four participants were students of the same university and
same degree of Cyber Security. All interviewees were warned
that by answering to questions they agree to terms of interview.
Interview questions were semi-structured. The main aim of
the questions was to find out how familiar the respondents
were with blockchain technology and its possible uses, such
as how well it may solve current problems and what security
implications it might have, especially when it comes to elec-
tion procedures. They also ask about respondents’ opinions on
the security of blockchain technology in relation to elections,
as well as their willingness to consider it as a voting system.
III. R ESULTS
The study’s findings show that respondents’ opinions on
blockchain-based voting methods are not all that similar. Four
interview participants had either basic or advanced understand-
ing of blockchain, compared to around one-fifth of respondents
who showed not sufficient expertise (Figure 4). Regarding
transparency, more than 60% of participants expressed con-
fidence in the security of blockchain technology and did not
raise any concerns about the way votes were delivered (Figure
5). Most of the people are very confident in transparency
and security and safeness from fraud of blockchain voting
But thirty percent said it made no difference to the security
of voting. In spite of this, almost 65 percent of participants
thought it unlikely that blockchain voting would be hacked.
Furthermore, 71% of respondents thought that blockchain
voting was convenient, with 25% disagreeing (Figure 6). Re-
markably, more than 50% of participants expressed uncertainty
on the ability of blockchain to prevent tampering (Figure
7). Still, more than 75% said they would be open to voting
on blockchain. About one-third and one-fifth of respondents,
 Fig. 6. Preferences compared to traditional voting methods
Fig. 7. Blockchain technology ability to prevent tampering or manipulation
of votes
respectively, expressed concerns about fraud prevention and
complexity. Interviewees expressed suspicion as well; several
questioned the government’s motivation for voting openness.
Despite this, more than half of survey respondents said they
were confident about the use of blockchain technology for
voting in the future. However, one respondent mentioned that
complexity could be a problem.
About a third of the respondents were associating prob-
lems of blockchain voting as complexity in using blockchain
voting (Figure 8). Next in the order was no protection from
fraud. When conducing an interview some participants were
questiong the possibility of this system. They were supposing
that transparency of voting is not in the best interest of the
government. To quote interviewee ”because it will not be
profitable, profitable for people in government”. Therefore,
they do not think that they will see it’s implementation.
They are not sure if the application of blockchain could
eliminate fraud fully. However, they are willing and prefer to
use blockchain voting because it is convenient and anonymous.
As one of the participants of interview said ”I’m too lazy to
go for to election area and we have problem that our roads not
so much good to go somewhere. So I think it could be more
comfortable for us.”. They see problems when the blockchain
applied to the whole population but sure about success on
youth. They suggest that lectures on blockchain may help elder
people gain more knowledge about election process
IV. D ISCUSSIONS
This research studied acceptance of technologies on the
sample of 339 people. They state that the median age was
significantly lower as the degree of acceptance increased [4].
Powell, Williams, Bock, Doellman, Allen and Schaupp &
Carter provide evidence that there are significant differences
in technological acceptance and intent to use e-voting systems
between age groups, particularly young adults and seniors
[5][6]. This supports the conclusion that blockchain voting
might face challenges in broader demographic application but
Fig. 8. Problems when using blockchain technology for voting in percents
could be successful among younger populations due to higher
technological acceptance and trust
About a third of the respondents were associating problems
of blockchain voting as complexity in using blockchain voting.
However in contract to our study, research done by AL-
Ashmori, Thangarasu, Dominic, and Al-Mekhlafi concluded
that complexity has no appreciable impact on the capability
of blockchain adoption [7].
Moreover, other research argue that they observed a positive
relationship between the ambition to use blockchain and the
transparency of blockchain-based services [8]. This was in line
with our survey results where more than 60% of the people
were very confident in transparency of voting process.
Queiroz & Wamba, Tran & Nguyen as cited by Yeoh,
Lee, Ng, Popovic, and Han stated that hardware, network
connectivity, and user support are examples of enabling con-
ditions that have a big impact on people’s adoption and
use of technology. This idea was supported by focus group
members’ quote stating that ”We should first tell our people
how to work on computers or networking first before. Before
blockchain”. Therefore, the main problem with implementa-
tion of blockchain voting might occur due to the problems of
digital divide.
Moreover, according to Licht, Duenas-Cid, Krivonosova,
and Krimmer, as can be seen from figure 9, the middleman
paradox, which refers to the concern of losing one’s own
power that could only has been a major factor impeding the
adoption of electronic voting worldwide [12]. This idea is
supported by the interviewees where one of them said that ”if
the elections will be secure and no one can hack them, then
that means they can’t rig the elections anymore. So as people’s
problems arise. They will speak more about it. They will
choose someone who they want to vote for, not the someone
who rigged the election from the start”.
V. C ONCLUSION
In conclusion, this study has attempted to explore how
younger people perceive blockchain-based voting systems,
with a particular emphasis on the opinions of students between
the ages of 17 and 21.Even though prior studies have looked at

Fig. 9. Overview on the Barriers of Internet Voting. Adapted from [12]
technology acceptability in great detail, there is still a signif-
icant lack of knowledge regarding the specifics of blockchain
technology acceptance, especially when it comes to general
elections. We sought to close this gap by thoroughly investi-
gating students’ perceptions of blockchain-based applications
in our study, with a focus on areas of trust and potential
problems. The main goals of the study were to ascertain
the variables affecting students’ readiness or unwillingness to
adopt blockchain technology for voting procedures as well
as the main problems and difficulties they saw with online
applications that used blockchain to power voting systems.
The results of this research support the idea that blockchain
technology applications might be more successful among
younger populations as compared to other. Moreover, findings
suggest that young people perceive well the blockchain tech-
nology thanks to its security and transparency and contentment
compared to more traditional voting processes.
The most important limitation lies in the fact that the
questions presuppose that students between the ages of 17
and 21 have a basic awareness of technology. Subsequent
investigations ought to evaluate whether the sample fairly
represents the variety of viewpoints present in this age bracket,
encompassing individuals with restricted access to voting
procedures or technology. In spite of these limitations, the
study certainly adds to our understanding of the blockchain
technology acceptance of younger generation.
The issue of perception of blockchain based electronic
voting is an intriguing one which could be usefully explored in
further research where more people from various background,
different age may take place.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I want to thank Seidin Ariya, my academic writing course
instructor and research supervisor and my thesis supervisor
Assiya Sarinova. Additionally, I’d want to thank my fellow
students Abylaykhan Myrzakhanov and Dastan Ilyasov for
spreading my questionnaire among the students. Finally, I
would want to thank the interview participants; without you,
my research would not have been possible. Furthermore, I
could not have started this research in the first place without
the other writers’ assistance in making their publications
available online so that more people could access knowledge.
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