The Central Election Commission of Ukraine is testing blockchain technology for possible use in the electronic voting system for elections. According to its director Alexander Stelmakh, the experiment is being carried out jointly with the NEM foundation Ukraine blockchain team.
There is a chance that blockchain technologies will become the basis of an electronic voting system. It was to demonstrate the possibility of innovative technology that a series of experiments on voting through the NEM blockchain began last month.
For clarity of the experiment, data from the protocols of the 2014 presidential elections in Ukraine from 29,215 polling stations were entered into the blockchain. The entered data corresponds to transaction records from which it is no longer possible to delete or alter the recorded information. One protocol is carried out by one transaction. The experiment used the NEM blockchain test environment, limited to 28 nodes.
When entering data in test mode of the NEM blockchain, XEM coins provided by NEM foundation Ukraine were used. In real-world use, each transaction costs approximately 0.3 XEM. It is not difficult to calculate that for each of the 29,215 polling stations, the estimated commission for posting election results on the blockchain will be $1,227 (8,765 XEM). According to Mr. Stelmakh, this is an acceptable price to pay for the safety, security and reliability of important information.
Ukraine is not the first country experimenting with blockchain technology in the public sector.
The first presidential elections using blockchain were held in the West African state of Sierra Leone, on March 7, 2018. Last month, the first round of local elections in the Swiss city of Zug ended, in which blockchain technology was used.
This spring, Russian Central Election Commission Chairman Ella Pamfilova spoke about the possibility of holding the 2024 presidential elections using blockchain technology.
West Virginia announced that it will hold its upcoming state elections using a blockchain-based mobile application. State authorities are confident that this application will not only reduce budget expenses for elections, but will also provide an opportunity for military personnel and citizens abroad to vote comfortably.
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