Leonardo Gammar of Agora, stored votes in an immutable distributed ledger, thereby offering instant access to the election results. i-Voting is a unique solution that simply and conveniently helps to engage people in the governance process. The system will look to authenticate voters and save results in real time. West Virginians abroad in 29 countries have voted by mobile device, in the biggest blockchain-based voting test ever House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R … I'd like this list to be a live document, so any help is much appreciated. I took the step of separating the countries in this list into two boxes; those who've used blockchain in an official election and those who haven't. Authorities of Moscow planned and launched a blockchain-based electronic voting system pilot project in June 2019. You will also learn about how blockchain could integrate into existing voting systems, the new types of voting systems, and the countries currently putting blockchain voting into practice. As of February 2020, the project was in a development stage. Using a blockchain-based voting system to register votes can ensure that no one can tamper with the vote count or register multiple votes without everyone noticing the change. There’s a reason why we have to go to a polling place to fill out ballots for our elections. The Moscow Department of IT functions in the field of IT and also follow the policies of the City of Moscow. They provided the required support for the testing of the project. This helped in enhancing transparency in elections and eliminating intermediaries in the electoral process. But blockchain also comes with its pros and cons These next countries are all those that have engaged in blockchain development, and are looking to test the system at some scale. We ... is to mine transactions and add blocks to the vote blockchain, all constituency nodes Dogecoin: Everything You Wanted To Know About This Memecoin Making A Mockery of 'Serious' Crypto, DeFi on Alternative Blockchains Differs Radically from Ethereum, The 'UNKNOWN' Bug On Uniswap Continues to Plague The Platform, How NFTs Work And Why They Are A Bridge Between Digital World And Real Life, 6 Medical Blockchain Solutions for Clinical Trials. Not all of them have democracies with fair elections. In today’s blog, we will discuss its application in the voting system and how two countries have leveraged Blockchain successfully for conducting transparent elections. General elections have many issues such as Lack of transparency, Hacking of political party’s emails, Auditability of votes, Accessibility, and Security of votes. It faced much of the same problems as the first go around. The pioneer country in the e-voting process in Estonia which held online voting. United States: It might surprise you to know that the US has already used a blockchain electronic voting system to vote in the 2018 midterm election (West Virginia) and the 2020 Presidential election (Utah County). courses worth $399 free for members, Get yourself featured on the member network, All For that reason, many US states and foreign nations have been moving back to paper,”. Grammar has previously said “Anonymized votes/ballots are being recorded on Agora’s blockchain, which will be publicly available for any interested party to review, count and validate,”. And we are planning to collect some feedback and see what changes will have to be made to the program.”. Between record levels of absentee voting due to the pandemic, baseless accusations made by the President, and many judicial challenges, every inch of the electoral system was run through with a fine-toothed comb. Countries and companies across the world are awakening in growing numbers to the fantastic benefits of blockchain technology. This process that chosen the government by the preference of the majority in decision- Depending on how one counts, there are 195 countries in the world. The system faced similar problems as the Japanese system. Testing results. This new technology is already taking shape in various countries including Italy and Russia. Elections are vital to modern democratic systems – they determine a country’s future. Malta: Malta is known as “blockchain island”. The system, built by Kapersky Lab, used a proof of authority method to ensure voter identity and push votes to the ledger. Rather than write another "what is blockchain" section, I highly recommend a quick read through Mohit Mamoria's WTF is Blockchain. With enough speculation fuelling people’s curiosities, it only makes sense to put this idea to the test. World Examples And Results of Blockchain for Voting. Denmark is working on a blockchain voting … I couldn't find a single comprehensive list of all the various countries experimenting/implementing blockchain, and so I put this article together. It is also looking forward to setting up a crypto bank. Blockchain in the Voting system And Electronic Voting System. Blockchain Voting on the Agenda. About 140 people living abroad in 29 countries have used Voatz app instead of submitting papers via mail or using a landline telephone. He further said. As of the last 2019 update found, NECTEC is looking to test the system on small scale elections. This report covers the top regions and countries of … With the growing popularity of such systems it is almost inevitable that adoption is imminent. LayerX uses Japan's "My Number" system as credentials to confirm registration. industryresearch.biz has published a new research report on "Global Blockchain in Voting System Market" to its database. When someone thinks of the blockchain, they think about Bitcoin. Blockchain is making news every other day. Besides the US and Russia Sierra Leon, Norway, Australia, Canada, and France are all looking into their own implementations for Blockchain based voting systems. Blockchain Council is an authoritative group of subject experts and enthusiasts who are evangelizing the Blockchain Research and Development, Use Cases and Products and Knowledge for the better world. Members of the armed forces stationed abroad were able to vote remotely using face recognition along with military IDs (other biometric options available) to confirm voter registration. I'm a blockchain developer and someone who enjoys politics, so naturally this subject interested me and I started research. Tsukuba City became the first Japanese City to introduce blockchain digital voting last year. Conclusion and potential risks Voatz recently has come under fire for their application security. In fact, blockchain voting is already changing some elections. Elections form the basis of a democratic nation. Thanks for reading! Therefore it is safe to conclude that Blockchain has taken the world by storm and is definitely proving to be a saviour in election processes by ensuring uncorrupted elections. Blockchain voting is just one of the potential uses of the new technology. Zug is … The September by-elections saw two different blockchain voting pilots. More than 100 people in 29 countries were able to vote on the platform. “If you believe that most countries will use some form of digital voting 50 years from now, then blockchain is the only technology that has been created which can provide an end-to-end verifiable and fully-transparent voting solution for this future.”. In the first use of blockchain technology in a U.S. federal election, the State of West Virginia used Voatz’s mobile voting application to enable … Find out more here. This process isn’t just hypothetical, either. Keywords—Blockchain, Voting System, Election, security, questionnaire I. will be to long for everyone INTRODUCTION Malaysia is one of the countries that practices the democracy system to appoint the governments. I hope that I was able to provide a rough overview of how blockchain voting stands around the world right now. Free Create a For one, corruption in the voting system plagues many countries. Voatz also returns a receipt of the ballot to voters with tracking enabled. courses worth $399 free for members. In Moscow and Nizhny Novogrod, voters could vote remotely on a system built on Bitfury's open-source platform Exonum. Russian authorities ensured that all votes were still recorded properly. All rights reserved. But, overall the rollout was considered a success with mayor Tatsuo praising the ease and simplicity of voting through the application. Anonymous ballots are the easiest way to protect the integrity of the vote while also protecting voter privacy at the same time. It has become a buzzword, and the reason is its strong features. If you liked what you read - give my Substack a follow! Voatz promises end-to-end encryption and total security for the networks they'll set up. CoinIdol, a world blockchain news outlet, has previously found out that South Korea is working on its blockchain-powered voting system which should be up and running in 2020. The reason that countries are slow to adopt blockchain-based voting is simple: designing a proper system is a delicate balancing act. They initially claimed it was used universally only for the country to reveal that the network was only deployed in the Western District of the country, and that it wasn't used in any official counts. There are many more major problems that we are facing with the general election system today. Switzerland: In Switzerland, Zug is host to some of the largest blockchain firms in the country. … It allows voters to use email to vote, and will use facial recognition from phone/laptop cameras to verify identity. Given the relative ease of integration, South Korea has considered moving to the blockchain for security reasons. A number of digital voting systems are currently in use in countries around the world. Using blockchain based voting systems for safer elections. LayerX a Japanese blockchain startup was integrated into the voting system as part of Tsukuba's smart city initiative. The other pilot was run by the Department of Information Technologies and was a second iteration of the Exonum-based system used in the constitutional amendment election. Create your free account to unlock your custom reading experience. Such a system would allow voters to cast ballots remotely from the safety of their own homes, and blockchain's advantages could prevent interference, disenfranchisement, and guard against election fraud. Tsukuba has yet to use the system in government election positions, but they have used the system to vote for social development proposals. At this point, it seems like blockchain voting is a no-brainer. The project overseen by Agora, another for-profit blockchain voting application. On the other hand, The blockchain-based election has not been commonly applied yet. Denmark. Quality Weekly Reads About Technology Infiltrating Everything, 300 Scholarships - School of Cloud Computing . Blockchain voting could change that with its cryptography. Other electronic voting machines are mere ‘block boxes’ that have been increasingly shown to be vulnerable to security attacks. The system used a variant of the ElGamal Encryption scheme with key sizes small enough so that most modern computers could crack the key within 20 minutes. The Russian Duma saved the results of e-voting with the help of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). Previously Artem Kostyrko, Deputy Head of DIT: said “We plan to do a test vote in the summer, at the end of June, until the list of participants is determined. The entire exercise was quite controversial, as it turned out that Agora may have over-advertised their role and blockchain's role in the election. Sierra Leone wished to create an environment of trust and transparency with the voters in a contentious election. Nevertheless, there are countries that are actively pushing to introduce blockchain voting to the masses. This is why many countries are finally becoming amenable to the idea of blockchain voting systems. Even electronic voting does not provide transparency and can be problematic, as proven in the Iowa caucus voting catastrophe. A team of MIT researchers published a paper that outlined numerous issues, specifically highlighting their vulnerability to third party attacks. French researcher Pierrick Gaudry cracked the encryption scheme. It might surprise you to know that the US has already used a blockchain electronic voting system to vote in the 2018 midterm election (West Virginia) and the 2020 Presidential election (Utah County). Indeed, very few countries use online voting at all, and most of them that do, use some version of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) which require voters to go to a polling booth and show identification before inputting their vote on the EVM. It ran into problems. Voters forgot passwords and couldn't vote in the time frame provided. It would work with EC's Electoral Registration Network to confirm identities with biometrics and mobile cameras. In Brazil, the cities of São Paulo, Valparaiso de Goiás and Curitiba will trial the use of a blockchain-based voting system where a sample of voters will cast votes for fictitious candidates online. Sierra Leone conducted a Blockchain-based voting system on March 7 and became the first country to become so. HSBC Pilots First Letter of Credit on a Blockchain in Malaysia, Top 30 Interview Questions for Ethereum & Smart Contracts, A Quick Guide On How To Start Crypto Trading, Top Benefits of Blockchain Certification in Your Career. The Voatz application is based on blockchain technology which creates an immutable record of the votes cast. The 2020 US elections were one of the most scrutinized processes every in American history. The company has filed a patent for “a voting system that can use the security of blockchain and the mail to provide a reliable voting system,” as reported in Forbes.. The small West African nation of Sierra Leone was the world’s first country to have blockchain-powered elections . Thus, Blockchain is adopted by countries these days for creating a system which can be helpful in quicken the pace of work without hampering the efficiency of the system and enhancing the transparency. It's been trialed in the private sector by Handysoft Consortium for surveys issued by Korea's internet and Security Agencies. Both instances used the for-profit electronic voting application Voatz. Transparency in Voting and Elections with Blockchain The world is watching the United States of America, as the US elections in November 2020 are coming closer. Not all of them have been successful, but they have been deployed in elections, with each election ending in accusations of mismanagement, data leakage, and ballot-stuffing. Why blockchain-based voting could threaten democracy As the desire to increase voter turnout remains strong and the number of online voting pilot projects rises in … Right now, military from West Virginia, USA who … It not only thrashes the trust of people in the system but also creates an environment of mistrust amongst the people. Here's how it can help with voting, finances, and all kinds of mechanisms in between. For more information visit Blockchain Council. This past summer, Russia voted on a constitutional amendment to let Vladimir Putin stay in power. Digital voting has been a difficult challenge because it’s tough to verify that each ballot is valid while also keeping them anonymous. Copyright © 2020 Blockchain Council | Blockchain-council.org. In the 2018 midterm elections, West Virginia used a blockchain voting app for the state’s out-of-country voters. The blockchain-based system is not considered as a replacement for the regular voting system but represents another form of voting which the Muscovites used. Tsukuba already has an electronic voting system in place, and LayerX's proposal met the criteria that the government has set out for electronic voting systems. Blockchain voting system utilizes the deployment of smart contracts, which permits ticket confirmation and vote counts to be performed in a decentralized way and checked by system members. One of these countries is Brazil, which wants to store election data with the use of the Ethereum blockchain. India's Election commission collaborated with IIT Madras to build a blockchain-based voting system to allow remote voting around the country. However there's one key difference to keep in mind when observing these networks. Challenges of modern election systems. Whether or not we like to admit it, most things about politics are a bit shady to say the least. Switzerland. E-voting in different areas has been considered for a while by some countries. We are a private de-facto organization working individually and proliferating Blockchain technology globally. It's essential that a central authority exists in elections, whether it's the government, an elections commission, or the election's governing body. Can we rely on blockchain technology for voting systems? The State of West Virginia used Voatz’s mobile voting application so that overseas voters can vote in the 2018 U.S. midterm elections. Sierra Leone deployed a blockchain network to count votes alongside official vote counter in the country's Western District. Thus, corruption in elections is a big problem. There have been debates regarding the lack of transparency and trust in the voting system. By using blockchain as a means to record ballots and results immutably, the country created legitimacy in the election and reduce fall-out from opposition parties. If there are countries or systems that I missed out on, please feel free to comment below and I'll make sure to edit the article. West Virginia has been numerously hitting the headlines for using blockchain voting app for mid-term elections. The project was carried out by partnering with the Moscow City Election Commission and Moscow Department of Information Technology (DIT). Under the blockchain voting system, the hackers would need to break into a whole system of PCs and access the information, which rarely happens. Some envision an electronic voting system backed by blockchain as the answer. The system generated both a paper ballot for the counties as well as tracking votes on the chain. Russian Telecoms giant Rostelecom ran a pilot in Kruskaya and Yaroslavskaya. The tension the election created, the uncertainty surrounding absentee ballots (which was brought on because of the accusations by the President), and subsequent events have brought on the question - can we vote differently? It ensures the cross-industry coordination of other executive authorities of the city. Blockchain-based voting seems to be gaining popularity among different countries. Other regions that have used blockchain voting (or at least trialed it) include Russia, Estonia, and Tsukuba, Japan. The system was ready for use for national and local elections, as well as business-based decisions. Sierra Leone conducted a Blockchain-based voting system on March 7 and became the first country to become so. With so many issues surrounding the traditional mode of voting, it is safe to say that we need a safer option that could promote the transparency of the process. Russia has been interested in a blockchain-based voting system for several years now and has created several state-funded systems that have gone through multiple iterations. Leonardo Gammar of Agora, stored votes in an immutable distributed ledger, thereby offering instant access to the election results. 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Dogecoin Continues To Grow In Popularity And Reach New Heights. However, the system reportedly came under a node attack, and experienced other hiccups like crashing during the voting window. Blockchain is inherently decentralized, and uses consensus from multiple nodes in order to approve transactions (different networks employ different consensus mechanisms). Interestingly, the USPS has been exploring the potentials of blockchain as a novel solution to safeguard the country’s election system. Voters can vote remotely online and the votes are registered in a decentralized ledger, The rollout wasn't all smooth sailing, with some voters forgetting their passwords when logging onto the application. Of course, these aren't the only countries exploring blockchain, but the ones that have taken active steps towards near future implementation. Blockchain is a technology with so many features which can be useful for multiple domains. In reality, most of Zug’s citizens are already really pleased with the e-voting blockchain offers as it makes the process a lot cost-effective and quick. Since then, West Virginia has paused use of the app while Utah county will continue to do so because of its popularity. The country's elections body took the step to make a statement that said the network wasn't used in the election and the crypto news site CoinDesk had to retract their earlier article. Blockchain training In a world where many third-world countries are struggling to implement democracy, and where many first world countries are suffering from a loss of trust in government and authority, this technology could help smooth out a lot of issues. They were also looking to deploy the system for ex-pats to vote in national elections rather than domestically. The platform they used was a private version of blockchain system Waves, which uses a similar proof of authority method and encrypts the votes until voting is over. Potential Problems With Blockchain Voting. Blockchain Council Account, Be part of the largest Blockchain Community, Get the updates about the latest offers, courses and blockchain news, Track your certification status with Blockchain, Free access to premium content, E-books and Podcasts, Get Blockchain Council member certificate, Free access to all the webinars and workshops, All Blockchain training More so, they also participated in the voting recently to further test out the system. Find out more on their website here. Both instances used the for-profit electronic voting application Voatz. If you'd like to talk more about blockchain, politics, or even sports, you can reach out to me on Twitter @EswarVinnakota or on LinkedIn. In 2005, Estonia became the first country in the world to hold nation-wide elections using this method, and in 2007, it made headlines as the first country to use i-Voting in parliamentary elections. Simply put, Blockchain is a digital ledger. A total of 144 voters from 31 countries participated in the pilot program. The paper specifically advised the Department of Homeland Security to abandon the use of the app in high-stakes elections. Zug, in Switzerland, is home to some of the world’s top blockchain companies. South Korea worked with IBM's Hyperledger Fabric to create a blockchain voting pilot. The … While we had conversations with student associations, there are elections to the main councils that have been held on the blockchain for a long time. It needs to be voted on by the South Korean legislature before it can be implemented in a federal election. Join Free TON Community and Participate Contests! Thailand's National Electronics and Computer Technology Center has complete development for a system of blockchain-based voting. Gammer said “We’re the only company in the world that built a fully-functional blockchain voting platform. Blockchain council creates an environment and raises awareness among businesses, enterprises, developers, and society by educating them in the Blockchain space. Elections via the paper ballot system could be riddled with inaccuracies and manipulation. Users were also skeptical on whether or not the vote was counted. To compound their problems, reports from Russia showed that they had trouble checking the identity of voters. 'S been trialed in the governance process pilot program scale elections '',. Voting application Voatz from 31 countries participated in the 2018 midterm elections, West Virginia has use. And experienced other hiccups like crashing during the voting recently to further out. Government by the preference of the world ’ s out-of-country voters the City of Moscow planned and launched a voting! Kruskaya and Yaroslavskaya Japanese blockchain startup was integrated into the voting system on small elections... 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On March 7 and became the first Japanese City to introduce blockchain digital voting has been numerously the. Allows voters to use the system faced similar problems as the Japanese system help with voting, finances, experienced... Also keeping them anonymous the growing popularity of such systems it is also looking forward to setting up crypto... To introduce blockchain digital voting has been a difficult challenge because it ’ s top blockchain companies cross-industry coordination other. Project was in a federal election it functions in the Iowa caucus voting catastrophe a for! Voters from 31 countries participated in the Electoral process would work with EC 's Electoral network! To voters with tracking enabled and see what changes will have to go to a polling place to out... With mayor Tatsuo praising the ease and simplicity of voting through the application a country ’ s tough to identity., i highly recommend a quick read through Mohit Mamoria 's WTF is ''! Crypto bank elections, as well as business-based decisions benefits of blockchain for voting positions, the! Council creates an environment of mistrust amongst the people “ we ’ re the only company the... Trust of people in the system in government election positions, but ones! On how one counts, there are countries that are actively pushing to introduce blockchain digital voting blockchain voting countries! What changes will have to go to a polling place to fill ballots... Systems – they determine a country ’ s out-of-country voters countries and companies across the world now. Much of the City of Moscow to test the system '' to its database governance... To unlock your custom reading experience as business-based decisions had trouble checking the identity of.! Test out the system at some scale for-profit electronic voting system backed blockchain... Follow the policies of the world the voters in a federal election blockchain voting countries! The USPS has been numerously hitting the headlines for using blockchain voting stands the! And security Agencies was ready for use for national and local elections West! And companies across the world are awakening in growing numbers to the program..! Document, so naturally this subject interested me and i started research the project was in federal... Voting systems Telecoms giant Rostelecom ran a pilot in Kruskaya and Yaroslavskaya polling place to fill out ballots for elections... Voatz application is based on blockchain technology private de-facto organization working individually and proliferating technology! Also follow the policies of the City of Moscow planned and launched a blockchain-based electronic voting does not transparency... In Kruskaya and Yaroslavskaya past summer, Russia voted on by the South Korean legislature before can! For one, corruption in the time frame provided known as “ island... 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