West Virginians Started Using A Blockchain-Based Mobile Application To Cast Votes

By Kapil Gauhar

Slate reported on September 25; West Virginians have started using a mobile voting application based on blockchain technology to cast absentee ballots in the up and coming midterm elections.

West Virginian who presently lives abroad have allegedly begun using a blockchain-empowered mobile application for voting on Friday, September 21. The mobile application is named “Voatz” and will allow voters registered in 24 nations to cast absentee ballots via mobile phones, mostly focusing on military members positioned overseas.

The pilot venture for remote voting that was just accessible to a select gathering of voters began in March and was finished effectively on the day of West Virginia’s primary elections on May 8.

Toward the beginning of August, the West Virginia Secretary of State, Mac Warner and Voatz informed CNN regarding the effective result of testing after “four reviews of different segments” of the stage.

Following the report, Mac Warner’s deputy chief of staff Michael L. Ruler said that each different West Virginia area will settle on an official choice about using the application for November decisions, including that voters will be still permitted to cast paper ballots if they desire.

The blockchain-enabled remote voting activity has drawn some criticism, in particular over security concerns. Chief Technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology, Joseph Lorenzo Hall asserted:

“Mobile voting is a horrific idea. It’s Internet voting on people’s horribly secured devices, over our horrible networks, to servers that are very difficult to secure without a physical paper record of the vote.”

The company that financed the application’s development, Bradley Tusk of Tusk Montgomery Philanthropies encouraged the blockchain deployment to cast votes. Tusk expressed that remote voting can turn out more voters, and therefore, “majority rules system would work significantly better”.