Voting is a very important part of any democracy, as it gives its citizens the chance to participate in the democratic governance process. In a democracy, the objective of voting is not just the creation of government but a collective effort that drives the interests of the society and the economy. The fundamental objective of voting across the world is to ensure that it happens in a fair and transparent way. The traditional ballot system has existed for years, but it’s safe to say now that it has outlived its time. Challenges, such as double voting, spurious votes and ballot …

Trials of blockchain-aided voting in India that would enable voters to post ballots from outside their home provinces are to begin soon. Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora said that research using the cutting-edge technology had already started and that mock trials were to be launched in the very near future, as reported by The Wire. India’s Election Commission worked alongside researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in creating a secure way to verify identities and enable voting from far-flung regions of the country, and beyond. On the same day, Arora confirmed a proposal that would give Indians living …

Senator Kelly Loeffler, formerly the CEO of Bitcoin (BTC) futures exchange Bakkt, will not be returning to Washington, at least not as a legislator. According to AP News on Jan. 6, Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock has won one of the tightly contested runoff elections for the United States Senate in the Southern state of Georgia. The runoff elections have been closely watched in the United States, as they will determine which party controls a majority in the Senate, which will set the timbre for President-elect Biden's legislative approach when he assumes office on Jan. 20. The race is still too …

The United States Presidential elections on Nov. 3 were contentious to begin with, but unfounded and inaccurate accusations of electoral fraud from the defeated President Trump cast a pall over the whole procedure. Daniel Hardman, chief architect and chief information security officer at self-sovereign identity solution Evernym, thinks blockchain might help voting in general going forward. “Basically, blockchain can provide a way for voters to be reliably and securely registered to vote, and then when votes are cast, blockchain can be a mechanism for proving that somebody has the right to vote, based on their prior registration,” Hardman told Cointelegraph. …

For the first time in Romania, the recent national parliamentary elections, which were held in November, used blockchain technology with the main purpose to guarantee the integrity of the electoral process and to strengthen its transparency. The government aimed to ensure tamper-proof and real-time data on voters’ presence. There is still a way to go for the voters to be empowered to record, manage, count and check the votes themselves (without bypassing it to the electoral authorities) by allowing them to hold a copy of the voting record. However, the perspectives of fostering the development of a tech-enabled community consensus …

Waves Enterprise, the business-focused spin-off of the Waves project, announced on the public release of its blockchain voting system primarily aimed at corporations and board governance. The Waves system uses blockchain at every step of the voting process, as votes are recorded and then counted with full cryptographic guarantees. Homomorphic encryption is used to accurately tally votes without having to reveal the identity of the person who cast each ballot. While the system is primarily targeted for lower stakes environments such as corporate boards, the technology has recently been trialed in Russia during its local and parliamentary elections. The team …

In an interview with the ABC News program GMA3: What You Need To Know on Friday, senator-elect Cynthia Lummis again voiced her support for the popularization of Bitcoin, going so far as to say that she does “hope to bring Bitcoin into the national conversation.” In a clip that has been widely circulating on Twitter, the soon-to-be-senator representing Wyoming — possibly the highest ranking US official to ever speak so glowingly of the digital currency — cited her experience as a former state treasurer for why she believes in Bitcoin’s future. “I’m a former state treasurer and I invested our …

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted people’s lives, the relationship between governments and citizens, and the entire world economy, and of course, it has had a major impact on the United States presidential election. Due to social isolation, a large number of American voters opted to vote by mail, which increased vote counting time, led candidate and acting President Donald Trump to judicialize the electoral process with actions in several states, and triggered intense debates about the veracity and legitimacy of the current American electoral system. Related: Blockchain voting systems could be the future, but current flaws persist The current voting …

Douglas Tuman, a crypto enthusiast and host of the Monero Talk podcast, has lost in his bid to represent New York’s 4th District in the United States Congress. According to election results from The Associated Press, Tuman, a Republican, received 134,243 votes to incumbent Democrat Kathleen Rice’s 147,580 in New York’s 4th District, which includes parts of central and southern Nassau County. Rice has served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives since 2015. The Monero (XMR) podcaster first announced his intentions to run for Congress in March, stating that he was running on a platform “to improve …

Bitcoin (BTC) is starting what will be likely a hectic week for markets as the United States begins its two-month presidential transition. After Joe Biden was declared the projected winner of the U.S. presidential elections during the weekend, Bitcoin fell, but managed to avoid major losses — what’s next? Cointelegraph takes a look at the factors set to influence BTC price action over the coming week. U.S. election frenzy starts to bite Attention remains firmly fixed on Washington as the aftermath of a highly contentious election begins to play out. Experts had warned that market volatility was all but guaranteed …

While some in the community continue to question the outcome of the US Presidential election, mainstream media outlets and the Associated Press have definitively called the race for former Vice President and current President-Elect Joe Biden. But with uncertainty out of the way, traders and analysts are now looking to determine what a Biden administration will mean for cryptocurrencies — and they appear to have come to a loose consensus that a President who says nothing about crypto is preferable to a president who actively disparages it. Qiao Wang, the lead at decentralized finance accelerator DeFi Alliance, cheered Trump’s loss, …

Japanese firm Layer X has announced the development of an electronic voting system based on a blockchain protocol as part of a wider “smart city” initiative being pursued by Tsukuba City. The Tokyo-based company said that the new system will meet the technical needs of electronic voting, including the prevention of double voting, accurate storage of voting content, voter confidentiality, and management of operation records. In addition, it will enable voters to check their own voting results, providing the cryptographic ability to verify that the recording and aggregation processes for the votes on the blockchain network was performed correctly. Layer …