If I had a data structure whose contents could be interpreted differently by different parties, I'd have a very hard time convincing stakeholders that it was immutable... and I'd feel bad trying to do so.
> We would know and be able to prove that they invalidated or ignored the results
To your new point, though, picture this: it's 2016 and you're running your election on the blockchain. Unfortunately, a consensus bug in the blockchain causes the updated nodes (say, half the network that updated) to split. The devs decide to go forward with the new consensus rules and abandon the other chain. However, we find that the tally on the abandoned chain elected Hilary and the tally on the new chain elects Trump. What happened? Were the devs co-erced? Did they introduce the bug themselves? Why was the tally different on the abandoned chain? Who collected the tally and wrote it to the blockchain?
How do we know or prove the legitimacy of the chosen blockchain over the abandoned one, as you claim?
> If I had a data structure whose contents could be interpreted differently by different parties, I'd have a very hard time convincing stakeholders that it was immutable... and I'd feel bad trying to do so.
Whether or not you could convince someone of it, it is so. The definition of an immutable data structure is that the contents of it don't change. It says nothing about interpretation. Immutability isn't some nebulous concept, it has a specific definition in computer science. And it is that the data itself does not change.
> To your new point, though, picture this: it's 2016 and you're running your election on the blockchain. Unfortunately, a consensus bug in the blockchain causes the updated nodes (say, half the network that updated) to split. The devs decide to go forward with the new consensus rules and abandon the other chain. However, we find that the tally on the abandoned chain elected Hilary and the tally on the new chain elects Trump. What happened? Were the devs co-erced? Did they introduce the bug themselves? Why was the tally different on the abandoned chain? Who collected the tally and wrote it to the blockchain?
> How do we know or prove the legitimacy of the chosen blockchain over the abandoned one, as you claim?
There is no need for consensus in an election-based blockchain, and this is not a new point, it's been my point the entire time. It's the point of all blockchain-election solutions. We can arbitrarily choose any chain, and then verify all the properties that we care about on it.
> We would know and be able to prove that they invalidated or ignored the results
To your new point, though, picture this: it's 2016 and you're running your election on the blockchain. Unfortunately, a consensus bug in the blockchain causes the updated nodes (say, half the network that updated) to split. The devs decide to go forward with the new consensus rules and abandon the other chain. However, we find that the tally on the abandoned chain elected Hilary and the tally on the new chain elects Trump. What happened? Were the devs co-erced? Did they introduce the bug themselves? Why was the tally different on the abandoned chain? Who collected the tally and wrote it to the blockchain?
How do we know or prove the legitimacy of the chosen blockchain over the abandoned one, as you claim?