West Virginia: American Troops Will Vote Via Blockchain-Based Mobile App

The state of West Virginia is introducing a blockchain-based mobile voting app that will help the American troops overseas to cast their votes in the upcoming elections.

As CNN reported, the state previously used the mobile voting platform – named the Voatz app – in a pilot project for the deployed troops and their dependents in two countries for the state’s primary elections. The Secretary of State, Mac Warner, said that the plan was to extend the pilot to each one of the 55 states in the US for the midterms in November once the pilot was successful.

Warner’s office described the app in detail and said that it focuses on “four audits of various components of the tool, including its cloud and blockchain infrastructure, revealed no problems.”

As he stated:

“There is nobody that deserves the right to vote any more than the guys that are out there, and the women that are out there, putting their lives on the line for us,”

Warner also added that the new app is not a call to replace traditional balloting – but a move that will still make troops able to “cast paper ballots” at the election. Created by the Boston-based startup Voatz, the app matches a voter’s selfie video to their government-issued ID to verify users. As soon as a user is verified, he or she is able to cast their votes which are recorded on the blockchain – encrypting the information securely.