Developing a quantitative measure of social privilege to inform the design of blockchain governance mechanisms and voting systems
Abstract
This paper proposes a novel voting system that incorporates an intersectional Privilege Index to address social inequalities and power imbalances that often lead to marginalized groups being underrepresented in the political sphere. The Privilege Index is a composite measure that takes into account various factors, such as race, gender, socioeconomic status, and education, which contribute to an individual's social privilege. By incorporating this index into the voting process, the proposed blockchain-based system aims to counteract the effects of systemic inequalities and ensure that underrepresented groups have a more significant impact on the outcome of elections and other democratic processes. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the proposed Privilege Index-based voting system, outlining its design, potential benefits, and associated ethical, legal, and practical challenges. The system incorporates zero-knowledge proofs to protect the privacy of citizens' personal information and assigns a vote token based on the Privilege Index score. During the voting process, citizens burn their vote tokens to cast their ballots, and the final results are determined by the sum of the token values for each candidate or option. Despite the potential benefits of the Privilege Index-based voting system, it also raises several ethical, legal, and practical challenges that must be carefully considered, such as accuracy of the Privilege Index, privacy concerns, potential for manipulation, legal and ethical considerations, and practical challenges. This paper examines these challenges and presents strategies for mitigating them to ensure a fair and inclusive democratic process.