Blockchain Beyond Finance: A look at technology’s implementation to transform voting process

Voting is yet another area where firms and governments are heavily exploring the potential of blockchain technology.

The key objective of almost all of these efforts is to enhance confidence in the voting process by ensuring that voting data has not been tampered with. Blockchain technology also enables tracking the results in real-time and facilitates participation by voters residing in remote areas, among others.

This is the fourth chapter in our “Blockchain Beyond Finance” series. Previous articles focused on the technology’s implementation in real estate, food, and automotive sectors.

Catalonia

In November 2018, reports suggested that the government of Catalonia was considering introducing blockchain technology in the community’s e-voting system. Referring to report from Spanish news outlet La Vanguardia, CoinTelegraph reported that Ismael Peña-López, director of Citizen Participation of the Government of Catalonia, said at the time that the government was considering blockchain technology, adding that no decision has been made yet.

Estonia

In 2016, the Republic of Estonia and Nasdaq announced that the country’s e-Residency platform would facilitate a blockchain-based e-voting service to allow shareholders of companies listed on Nasdaq's Tallinn Stock Exchange to vote in shareholder meetings. The e-Residency platform is an electronic identity system used by both Estonian residents and those with business interests in the country to access government services through e-Residency digital authentication.

In an update in January 2017, Nasdaq said that they had a functioning proof of concept (PoC) with four web-based user interfaces in Estonia. The PoC could identify users based on their Estonian digital ID – either via Estonian ID card or e-Residency card.

Japan

In September 2018, the Japanese city of Tsukuba trialed a voting system based on blockchain technology and the My Number identification system, The Japan Times reported. Using the new system, voters were able to cast their ballots via a computer display after placing the My Number card on a card reader. The system leverages blockchain technology to “prevent the voting data from being falsified or read,” the report said.

Kenya

In August 2018, Bloomberg reported that Kenya’s electoral agency was seeking to tap into blockchain potential to offer real-time results. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chairman Wafula Chebukati told the media house that the agency was considering using distributed-ledger technology (DLT) to improve transparency and enable secure access to results.

South Korea

In 2017, blockchain startup Blocko announced that Gyeonggi-do, a populous province of South Korea, adopted a blockchain-based voting system developed by Blocko, in a vote for local community projects that are proposed by residents. The blockchain-based voting involved about nine thousand residents who took votes on and off-line. The online voting system was adopted in the vote for the “Ddabok Community Support Project” that involved smart contracts technology developed by Blocko.

More recently, South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Election Commission (NEC) have announced their plans to develop a blockchain-based online voting system.

In November 2018, South Korean blockchain project ICON unveiled the “Blockchain Seoul” application which demonstrated 3-steps of services including ‘ICON Blockchain Vote’, developed in collaboration with the Korea National Information Society Agency and the Korea National Election Commission.

Thailand

In November 2018, the Thai Democrat Party used blockchain technology to elect its new party leader in a recently held primary election. The election, which ran from 1st to 9th of November, leveraged Zcoin’s blockchain. In an online post, Zcoin said, “The vote was concluded with a total of 127,479 votes that came from all over Thailand and to the best of our knowledge this is the world’s first application of blockchain technology in a political election of this scale.”

United States

In February 2016, Blockchain Technologies Corp., (BTC), a New York-based blockchain and cryptocurrency software technology company and startup accelerator, collaborated with the Rand Paul campaign, recorded the raw reporting results of Iowa caucus precinct captains onto a blockchain. Results were reported to IowaCaucus.net and the links to the official blockchain records were available there as well.

In April 2016, the Libertarian Party of Texas secured election results using blockchain technology. Blockchain Technologies Corp. (BTC) was the sole provider of balloted election services to the 2016 Libertarian Party of Texas State Convention. The process involved using paper ballots, which provided physical evidence of every election’s results. The marked ballot was run through a scanner that used optical mark recognition (OMR) technology to extract the vote data from the ballot. Once scanned, the ballot data was sent to multiple blockchain databases.

In a bid to improve voter participating by military personnel deployed to remote areas, West Virginia opted for a blockchain-based voting solution developed by Voatz. The voting application allowed voters to receive, vote, and return their ballots electronically. According to the official release dated 20 September 2018, the project marked the first mobile voting application and first use of blockchain technology in a federal election.

Some of the notable private sector efforts

• In April 2016, National Settlement Depository (NSD), Russia’s central securities depository, announced that it has completed the development and testing of an e-proxy voting system running on a distributed ledger. Sberbank became the first pubic joint stock company to propose its shareholders to use the e-voting technology developed by NSD. In December 2017, NSD and VTB Registrar announced that it will provide Alrosa, Russia’s leader in diamond mining, with e-voting services at its General Meeting of Shareholders.
• In October 2016, Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) announced that it was using blockchain technology for eVoting services, which would allow the concerned parties to directly connect and monitor voting in any Annual General Meeting (AGM). In October 2017, ADX announced that it was the first financial market in the MENA region to apply blockchain technology in its services through e-voting for Annual General Meetings (AGM).
• In April 2017, Broadridge Financial Solutions, a provider of investor communications and technology-driven solutions, in collaboration with banking giants J.P. Morgan, Northern Trust and Banco Santander announced the successful completion of a blockchain pilot aimed at improving the global proxy vote transparency and analytics.
• In November 2017, South African central securities depository (CSD) Strate entered into an agreement with Nasdaq to deliver a new blockchain solution to bring electronic voting to the country’s capital markets.
• In April 2018, Cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab announced a blockchain-based online voting solution, called ‘Polys’. The solution allows anyone to conduct secure, anonymous and scalable online voting, while ensuring that results cannot be altered by participants or organizers.
• In April 2018, Fintech Finance reported that KAS BANK, a European specialist in safekeeping and administration of securities, was going to apply blockchain technology to transform the shareholders voting process.
• In May 2018, Spanish banking giant Banco Santander announced that it used blockchain technology for investor voting at its annual general meeting (AGM).
• In December 2018, National Stock Exchange of India (NSE), in collaboration with Elemential Labs, announced its plans to trial blockchain technology for e-voting for listed companies.