Western Virginia To Offer Blockchain Voting For Medium-Term Elections This Year
West Virginia is deploying a mobile voting application based on a blockchain so that US troops abroad can vote in the upcoming elections.
The state previously used a mobile voting platform, called the Voatz app. Secretary of State Mac Warner at the time said that the plan was to extend the experiment to 55 state districts for midterm elections in November.
“There is no one who deserves more right to vote than men and women who put their lives at risk for us,” Warner added.
He also added that the new application was not an appeal to replace the traditional vote system and insisted that the troops would still be able to “file paper ballots” in the elections.
The application, which was created by the Boston start-up Voatz, corresponds to voter’s selfie video to their government-issued ID to verify users. After approval, voters will be able to cast their votes, which will then be recorded on the detachment, providing secure encryption of information.
Michael L. Queen, Warner’s deputy chief of staff, says final decisions will be left to individual districts about whether they want to use the app for elections.
