Moscow Government Considers Blockchain-Based Voting System

Since blockchain technology started gaining momentum, there have been numerous reports throughout the world on its potential in being used as a voting tool. Now, recent news indicate that the government of Moscow will be pursuing its plans to test out blockchain technology in a couple of local voting events.

The news on Moscow trialling blockchain technology for this very purpose came out last year, when officials mentioned that they’re looking into using the technology in order to reduce the fraud associated with people voting on city management issues. The blockchain-based voting platform would be part of the Active Citizen project created by the government.

According to a representative, "The introduction of this technology will make the voting in the [Active Citizen initiative] even more open: it will be difficult to say that the administration incorrectly interprets the answers, changes the results of the voting when the citizens themselves can verify this information."

What’s even more exciting is that Moscow decided to make the code behind the blockchain platform public, and open-source. Hence, it is currently available to see by anyone, over on GitHub.

At this moment in time, there is no assurance that the system will pass its trials and that it will ever be used as a voting platform for the public. Regardless of this aspect, the technology could also be used for private votes, especially by companies which have sold shares to the public. This way, any shareholder could use the blockchain network in order to express their opinion on what decisions a particular company should make.

Creating a complete blockchain-based voting system for the public is indeed possible, yet it brings about numerous problems that must first be addressed. Some of these include the right to vote secrecy, stating that no government should be able to see what a person has voted for, especially in elections for public office. Therefore, the Moscow project only aims to use the system in order to help people vote on city management issues, which don’t really need to be private.

Based on everything that has been outlined so far, it is exciting to see a country like Russia considering the adoption of such a platform.