Until recently, online voting has been dismissed as faulty and susceptible to hacking. Now that various different industries have found ways to successfully harness blockchain technology, that conversation is changing.

How Blockchain Voting Works

Thanks to the development of a mobile app by Voatz, a Boston-based company, blockchain voting is already being tested out by a few jurisdictions for their local elections.

So far, it’s been used to replace the absentee ballot process for people who can’t make it to their polling place, mainly members of the military and their families who are stationed overseas. Eligible voters are able to sign up for the program by requesting an absentee ballot and completing the identity verification process through the app to send in their vote.

There are several other startup companies attempting to apply blockchain technology to elections, including FollowMyVote, whose platform works by turning votes into blockchain transactions. A token symbolizes each person’s vote, which is transferred into the “wallet” of the candidate they’ve selected.

Votem is another notable contender in this space, offering a similar blockchain solution in addition to other online voting services.

Potential Benefits of Blockchain Voting

Here are a few advantages that blockchain voting could bring to elections:

• You could vote from home. No more waiting in lines or worrying about finding the time to get to the polls before or after work.
• You would receive verification that your vote was submitted.
• Your vote would remain private.
• Voter fraud could be easily investigated or eliminated completely.
• Open-source software means that anyone could audit and validate the system.
• Results could be broadcast in real-time, and there’d be no counting of ballots.
• Ditching paper ballots would be more environmentally friendly.
• Costs associated with conducting elections would be decreased.

Potential Pitfalls of Blockchain Voting

On the flip side, here are a few disadvantages that could affect blockchain voting:

• Voters who are not tech-savvy or refrain from using technology would find it much harder to vote. Additionally, there are rural areas that still don’t have reliable internet access, however, these are issues that would affect any online voting system, with or without blockchain.
• The complexity of blockchain technology could make people who don’t understand how it works skeptical toward it and hesitant to try it.
• The decentralized nature of blockchain could make government officials nervous and prevent it from being implemented for elections.
• Malware could be developed that would infect a person’s device and alter their vote before it’s submitted.
• Other digital voting systems are also being developed that could prove themselves to be more secure or cheaper than blockchain.

Blockchain Voting Pilot Programs

The Voatz mobile voting app has been put to the test for elections in West Virginia and the city of Denver, Colorado. West Virginia has deemed its pilot program a success and plans to use it again, meanwhile, the results of the Denver pilot program are still being audited and details have not yet been released.

Utah will soon become the third state to try out Voatz’s platform. Several cities within Utah County, Utah will be piloting absentee blockchain voting for the upcoming August municipal elections.

Additional Reading

This article from Computerworld goes into more detail about the Utah pilot program and shows how the Voatz mobile app works.