The first experiment on blockchain voting was successfully completed in the Swiss canton of Zug, known as “Crypto Valley” analogous to the famous Silicon Valley in the U.S. It took place from June 25 to July 1 with local authorities saying that, despite the small number of participants, everything went fine. Access to the system was granted to 240 people, while 72 voted.
Why it is important
- he experiment with voting was held in Switzerland for the first time. Blockchain should ensure the transparency of the process, the impossibility of falsification and the simplicity of counting the results. The technology, which was used in Zug, made the voices of the residents anonymous and at the same time provided a safe check. 1. The purpose of the blockchain voting in Zug was to test the efficiency of the eID system, which allows residents to participate in the survey using electronic gadgets. In the next two months, the authorities of Zug will evaluate the experiment from a technical point of view, writes Swissinfo.ch. 1. The voting was a pilot test. Authorities warned beforehand that its results would not be binding. At the same time, almost all participants in the experiment (69 of 72) called the new method convenient. Twenty two people said they were ready to use a digital ID to participate in social surveys and pay taxes, 19 people would like to pay for parking with it.
The e-voting system for Zug was developed by Luxoft together with the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences. The website of the Zug government says that developers are planning to open the source code of the program.
"There are concerns about electronic voting because voting is a fundamental mechanism for direct voting.... That's why we believe that this technology should not belong to a single company. We will build the e-voting platform 'Open Source' so that people can understand what the technology is and how it works. We want to encourage more people to develop blockchain-based applications for governments worldwide," Vasily Suvorov, Luxoft's chief technology officer, said.
The digital identification system on the Ethereum blockhain was launched in November 2017 in the Swiss Zug. Now it is in the experimental stage. Switzerland is one of the most crypto friendly European countries for the sphere of blockchain.
By Ekaterina Ulyanova