Blockchain technology is the record of transactions that cryptocurrency relies on, and for a long time now cybersecurity experts have argued that it can be used for security in other areas. A Switzerland-based company called Agora just provided some proof of concept.
Sierra Leone’s general election has been hotly contested with speculation that the results would be rigged. On Wednesday, that country held the first ever blockchain-verified election. Every paper ballot was logged into a blockchain, a process overseen by the Swiss start-up.
“I strongly believe that this election is the beginning of a much larger blockchain voting movement,” Agora CEO Leonardo Gammar told Coindesk on Thursday.
Blockchain is a logical election security solution since there is no way to hide changes to the public record. In theory, there is no way to manipulate vote counts, because every transaction is visible to the public in a shared record. Anyone can look at it, and the ledger itself is created via distributed network of connected computers. It’s open-source election infrastructure, and it may well be the future of elections. One transaction, one vote. Simple. Unhackable.
Read more here.
