And you think an uneducated rural farmer is going to trust some numbers you show them? If they think the election is unfair, you going on about blockchain this and zero knowledge proof that is just going to convince them that you're making shit up in order to support a stolen election. The purple thumb proof works way better there.
The academics are right and you're wasting your time, sorry.
Purple thumbs are a pretty good system, and they were definitely not convinced by voting machines, nor paper ballots. But, it's a physical security nightmare. My job was to keep IEDs out of the polling places. There are many more issues such as multiple voting, cross-district voting, cross-border voting, voter intimidation, retaliation, etc.
And imagine an academic suggesting that it's not practical. The most celebrated academic result of the last 25 years in the field was a crypto system that would take a thousand years to multiply one-bit numbers.
Regardless, you're right. It is a waste of time. There's no funding. Academia is like consulting. You make money by telling people what they want to hear. I've become more aware of this.
The academics are right and you're wasting your time, sorry.