Blockchain-Based Voting to be Used in West Virginia Midterm Elections

West Virginian troops serving overseas will cast their midterm election ballots on the blockchain, making them the first to use the state's new distributed ledger-based mobile voting app.

The newfangled system will see the U.S.'s first use of smartphones for federal voting, and is reportedly aimed to streamline the ballot process for overseas troops, according to CNN. Developed by Boston-based Voatz, the app requires users to scan government-issued identification, a live "Selfie" facial snapshot, and process their fingerprint on the phone's touch-scanner before voting.

"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."

Lorenzo's apparent misunderstanding may be dismissed as naive; yet as an influential technologist, his agenda will be troubling for blockchain advocates.

"Instead of being stored on a single, Internet-connected server, in this pilot, votes are recorded on redundant and geographically distributed servers running open source blockchain software."

Where some may be frazzled by the notion of blockchain technology, skeptics also appear threatened by the replacement of the status quo-paper votes.

According to Marian K. Schneider, president of election watchdog Verified Voting, paper may be more immutable than blockchain.

Voatz seems to understand that improving a centuries-old process will be an easy undertaking.

"As with the implementation of all new election technologies, the implementation of mobile voting will be a process. It is not something that can, nor that we want to, happen overnight."

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