Blockchain First - Election Held Using Blockchain Verification In Sierra Leone

in bitcoin •  7 years ago 

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Despite a weekend that is continuing to be painful across the crypto-sphere market, blockchain technology is definitely leaving its mark in ways that will pan out long-term.

Only a few days ago, I wrote of the first US-recorded real estate transaction taking place on the Ethereum blockchain. Yesterday, news broke of the first national election verified by blockchain in Sierra Leone.

The election was handled by Swiss startup "Agora", a blockchain-based voting verification service. There is some ongoing controversy as to the fairness of the elections, and investigations continue into scattered reports of polling violence. Several parties claimed the election was unfair, but that is something that takes places appoximately 100% of elections.

Generally speaking it is being heralded as a successful election by African-continent standards, with ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) noting the election was generally a success.

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This was not a high-tech affair with users submitting votes online. Each vote was manually counted and verified by Agora employees on paper ballots before being entered into what Agora calls a "skipchain", or partially-public blockchain with only some, not all, transaction information available publicly.

This may not be a perfect solution, as it is still something that can be influenced, but it is clearly a step in the right direction towards actual public-chain election recording.

I'd love to see something like that happen on Steem...I think we might have one of the few chains that can handle the transactions!

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Sources: Google, r/WorldNews
Copyright: RTT News

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This is definitely a step in the right direction as you correctly put it. With more and more countries adopting the Blockchain technology it's too far off to imagine more countries going this route soon. This is what I've been waiting and wishing for, makes life so much easier. It's not perfect yes, but when have the elections been 100% transparent and perfect you know. I know that as more and more countries adopt this the technology is gonna get better and better. Sierra Leone is at the forefront of this it seems. Awesome. I can't wait to see this technology being implemented in my country as well.

Decentralized voting is a perfect use case for blockchain technology, I am an investor in Horizon State which aims to do something similar and has a great team with tie ups with UN

I'd love to see it done on fully-visible public chains, though!

In what way should this be 'a perfect use case for the blockchain technology' ? It is more than one step backwards.

What makes you think that? I believe blockchain technology is suited for voting purposes as it can't be tempered, we cast vote using Ballot boxes which is just hilarious in this age of technology. So many efforts are involved in order to carry out a voting process and then there is always a risk of manipulation of votes, when we are switching to digitization for almost everything then why not voting?

This could bring back TRUE democracy. This is big

Wow I can't believe this blockchain is on its way to ruling the economy.

Anything where human trust is a liability is ripe for blockchain based disruption.

Finally! We start to see some blockchain applied to the dirtiest environment of them all: politics. :)

That's great! Finally I found people that understand the potential of the Blockchain Technology!

Few minutes ago I posted, blockchain helps democracy. I was searching about it. It is a great initiative. Now manipulation in elections wil be remove. That's the beauty of technology.

@lexiconical this is huge,
let's hope it was not used in some elaborate scam,
that will end up giving blockchain a bad rep...

Thanks for sharing!

Resteemed!

Decentralized voting is a perfect use case for blockchain technology, U5dsppcNJMM2rn9aoXkiw43DvanrzzY.gif

i think it,s a good information for me thank you so much....

the future is crypto

Hey @lexiconical, great post! I enjoyed your content. Keep up the good work! It's always nice to see good content here on Steemit! :)

This is a good trend for a start and definitely, this trend gonna continue. Bitcoin to the moon.

For future viewers, price of bitcoin at the moment of posting,,

Wow..in Africa. That's a great improvement . I love africa

Good information provided. Thanks for sharing.

helpful post indeed, need to learn more about blockchain verification.

Hello @lexiconical,
thanks a lot for sharing this information - it is great to see that the real usage of Blockchaintechnology is growing!
Regarding your articel: Why did they have to check every single vote manually ? Need to add that I am not familiar with the agora project at all.

Transparent and fair election on the blockchain?The US government will never allow it....

Let see an opportunities of blockchain in political system of the world

this is huge news. third world countries seem to be most welcoming of new technology

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Wow. Cool deal. I'm glad to see the blockchain used in this way. It does make sense.

Thanks for a great article!

Decentralized voting is a perfect use case for blockchain technology, I am an investor in Horizon State which aims to do something similar and has a great team with tie ups with UN

DQmPNvmpfuvKHB6hjGGw1fGVT7ySoGtgw9H1eYUVfUvbocV.png

Agora CEO Leonardo Gammar told Coindesk on Thursday.Gammar is not alone. Many believe blockchain technology can go a long way in creating a secure platform for digital elections, because it creates an unassailable ledger of transactions. The blockchain works by utilizing a distributed network of connected computers all transactions are stored in a shared public record, so there is no main hub vulnerable to attack. In a blockchain election, each transaction represents one vote, and because a blockchain is tamper-proof, election results would perfectly reflect the vote without fear of hacking or fraud.At least, that's what blockchain proponents hope. The Sierra Leone election is an important milestone in testing these lofty ideals. Agora has shared their blockchain data with independent election overseers, and the company hopes that by inventing any skepticism about the election's legitimacy.@lexiconial