US State Of Virginia Wants To Use Blockchain To Improve Elections

The US State of Virginia is making waves in the latest crypto news for its apparent interest to study blockchain and see how it will help it improve elections and voting. All of this came from a new bill published on January 8 and pre-filed on December 27 which requests further study into the blockchain-based elections.

Virginia’s General Assembly has proposed the bill, where it asks the Department of Elections to determine whether blockchain technology should be considered to secure voter records as well as election results.

The US State of Virginia, as per the bill, wants to see whether the distributed ledger technology (DLT) can help with voting. The patron of the bill is the state delegate and cybersecurity specialist Hala Ayala (D-51) who said that there is a wait for committee assignment now. If approved, there will be a long road ahead of it on its way to potentially becoming law. However, the delegate is certain that this could change the way a state of over 8 million people votes.

As per the bill’s current tenets, the department will also have to determine whether the costs and benefits of using blockchain outweigh the ones of traditional registration and election security measures. The department is also expected to make recommendations on how to implement this specific technology.

If you have read the blockchain news on our site before, you probably know that the neighbouring state of West Virginia was the first state to offer blockchain-based mobile voting in a federal election. In May 2018, West Virginia’s primary completed the first government run where blockchain helped voters for the first time in United States history.

Since then, we could see a lot of cities following this example. Some of the most notable cities were the city of Denver, Colorado and the Utah County, both of which conducted successful mobile voting pilots.

The recent move by the US State of Virginia shows that the interest for deploying blockchain in events like voting is greater in the country. If it is successfully deployed, blockchain could definitely help voters but also set an example for future voting and voting in other countries, too.