Thailand To Be The First To Use Blockchain Technology for Voting
Thailand’s Democrat party used Zcoin Blockchain for a live e-voting that took place from 1-9th November 2018, making it the first in the world to use the blockchain technology for voting.
There were more than 1,20,000 votes cast during the election, the result of which was former Thai prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva winning by 67, 505 votes. He won against his rival, Warong Dechgitvigrom, who received 57,689 votes.
The members were allowed to vote in two ways. First was through voting stations equipped with a Raspberry Pi-based voting system and the second was through a blockchain based application called D-Elect that asked voters to submit their photo ID as a proof.
All the voting information was then stored in a decentralised and distributed file system that can store massive volumes of data, known as IPFS. These IPFS hashes were then stored on the Zcoin blockchain technology.
The founder and lead developer of Zcoin, Poramin Insom made a public statement:
“I am very proud that Zcoin played a role in making Thailand’s first large-scale e-vote, a reality, which saw greater voter participation and transparency,”.
Later, Zcoin was quoted saying in an online post:
“The vote was concluded with a total of 127,479 votes that came from all over Thailand and to the best of our knowledge this is the world’s first mobile application of blockchain technology in a political election of this scale.”
To keep the security of the voting information intact, Shamir’s Secret Sharing Scheme was used which required multiple keys to access any system. For voting, Shamir’s scheme needed multiple custodians to decrypt the voting information. For this five custodians were chosen, one representing each candidate.
The success of this particular election has paved the way for blockchain adoption. Thailand being the first ever to use blockchain technology through an app for political purpose shows that there is scope for other countries too.
It is not just Thailand who has been open to the technology. In other news, West Virginia used a Blockchain-based app developed by Voatz, a Blockchain app development company, as a trial for midterm federal election. This allowed military personnel living abroad to cast their vote through the mobile app.
The app used facial recognition technology to match the faces of the voters with the previously submitted documents during the registration. This ensured complete security even though the votes were being cast from different places around the world.
Swiss City rug also ran a similar trial using Blockchain technology for municipal voting. The app issued digital identities for every voter who used their mobile phones.
Voting needs to be a highly secure procedure and there couldn’t be any better technology than Blockchain. It ensures the candidates’ identity is real and he or she is not someone who’s not allowed to vote.
Also, with Blockchain mobile apps, anyone who knows how to use a smartphone can cast a vote. This not only increases the number of voters but also increases the chances of fair winning.
However, some government officials still seem sceptical about the use of Blockchain in voting for a number of reasons: namely, its complexity towards understanding and using the technology, the risk of security hack and its decentralised structure.
Blockchain has been a highly controversial technology with some agreeing with its usage and others finding it insecure. But with the continuous introduction of Blockchain in many industries, Blockchain has gone beyond just cryptocurrencies.
Blockchain has already entered the healthcare, finance and business sectors. Many companies are going for specialisation in Blockchain development services seeing the demand for it. The reason why Blockchain is relied upon is its accuracy and potential to manage data with ease. This time it was politics but next time it may be something even more interesting.
As a Blockchain app development agency, this was our take on the Blockchain’s latest success in the voting for Thailand’s Democratic party. Stay tuned for more news from us at Appinventiv or contact us for any Blockchain related queries.
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