Elections

A good number of countries including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Italy, Estonia, Ukraine, Denmark and Russia are planning to use blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) to conduct their polls via sophisticated electronic processes and in other vital sectors. As the US presidential elections are getting closer, some blockchain-friendly candidates including Andrew Yang are proposing the use of the technology in e-polling, to avoid vote rigging and manipulation of poll results as what happened in the last elections.

CEO and founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, recently won another leadership election at the company’s yearly general committee meeting. Most of the institutional shareholders of Facebook (FB), a California-based online social media and social networking service firm, wanted Zuckerberg to retire from being chairman of the board so as he can effectively manage other daily operational activities of the firm.

The 2019 European election is finally over and the elected representatives of the Five Star Movement (M5S), a political party in Italy founded in October 2009, will occupy the 14 seats available, however, the results show a drop in preferences for minister Luigi Di Maio, a popular cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast. Barred from the cutting-edge policies and stunned by hullabaloo after falling back on a position at the Ministry of Education, Dino Giarrusso becomes the most voted candidate in the M5S. The names of the candidates with vision for the North West, North East, Center, South and Islands districts in Italy are also being picked out.

A major political scandal has taken place in Georgia. The opposition party called Girchi has promised everyone who votes for its candidate in the next elections, crypto coins worth $50. Such an act has been immediately recognized by opponents as a bribe.

In 2018, West Virginia used the blockchain to conduct voting for a midterm election, and this made it the first U.S state to replace the ballot with a new technology. The state will go forward with the use of blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) in all voting exercises, as stated by Donald Kersey, elections director in the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office.

Fake news around the world increase day in day out at a terrible speed. In January this year, Google successfully removed around 6,226 scam advertising accounts in Italy. Meanwhile, the European Union (EU) parliamentary elections will start from May 23-26.

A lot of society’s resources have been spent to enable the voting process of civil rights. Italy alone spent over €389 million to conduct the 2013 parliamentary elections. It is now investing heavily to enable efficient blockchain-based e-voting in the future.

Thai government agency NECTEC has created a distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based solution set to digitalize the voting process in Thailand. The tech unites e-voting in close groups and the traditional balloting. In case 5G is adopted, every voter shall be connected to the voting platform.

Yulia Tymoshenko, ex-Prime Minister of Ukraine and aspirant for the presidential chair at next year’s elections, has suggested a persuasive way to help conquer corruption in the country. According to her point of view, blockchain technology is the perfect candidate for this role.