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- Looking to making voting practices more convenient, increase voter turnout, and modernize practices, many government officials and companies are looking to blockchain to help.
- Blockchain systems have created new ways for people to invest, send money, and may help store records that make credentials, land ownership, and food origins more transparent and harder to forge.
- However, three researchers who study traditional and blockchain-based voting share why blockchain won’t help fix voting issues — and they can in fact make things worse.
Looking to modernize voting practices, speed waiting times at the polls, increase voter turnout and generally make voting more convenient, many government officials – and some companies hawking voting systems – are looking to an emerging technology called a “blockchain.” That’s what’s behind a West Virginia program in which some voters serving abroad in the military will be able to cast their votes from their mobile devices. Similar voting schemes have been tried elsewhere in various places around the world.
As researchers in the Initiative for CryptoCurrencies and Contracts, we believe in the transformative potential of blockchain systems in a number of industries. Best known as the technology behind bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, blockchains can do much more than allow anonymous strangers to send each other money without fear of fraud or tampering. They have created new ways for people to invest in technology ventures that have attracted billions of dollars, and may someday store records that make educational credentials, land ownership and food origins more transparent and harder to forge.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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See Also:
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- Voter registration around Austin smashed records — but it could actually be a big problem
- Trump’s response to Khashoggi’s assassination has more to do with selling $ 110 billion in weapons
SEE ALSO: Walmart is using blockchain to improve its food-safety practices
