Editorial

Ukraine to trial blockchain-based voting

But it’s not the first, with successful trials in Switzerland and an upcoming project in West Virginia underlining how seriously the idea of distributed ledger-based voting is becoming

Posted 9 August 2018 by Gary Flood


Ukraine has launched blockchain-based e-voting trial using the a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and blockchain platform NEM.

The test vote is to be run by the Republic’s Central Election Commission with local NEM Foundation representation, with the poor estimating putting a suitable node in each polling station could come in as low as $1,227.

Storing voting results on blockchain will make impossible for anyone to change the records, claims the organisation’s Oleksandr Stelmakh on his Facebook page.

Another advantage, says the Commission, is that the NEM protocol presents information in a more user-friendly format for voters.

Ukraine has recently entertained ideas of other blockchain-based voting systems, but it’s actually not the first polity to look at using distributed ledger this way: US state West Virginia will allow locals working in the US Armed Forces troops deployed overseas to vote in the upcoming mid-terms via blockchain-based app Voatz, while the Swiss town of Zug, which also allows use of Bitcoin for local payment, also experimented with blockchain voting earlier this year, allowing residents to vote via their smartphones.

Local government officials say the number of participants in the test was not particularly high, but those who took part apparently found it easy, and a technical analysis is on-going to see what lessons can be learned.