Waves Enterprise, a major technology company specializing in blockchain-based solutions for businesses and governments, has inked a new partner to streamline its e-voting service. According to a Dec. 16 announcement, Waves Enterprise has signed a memorandum of understanding with blockchain platform Ontology to integrate decentralized identification tools into the Waves Enterprise e-voting system. As part of the partnership, Waves Enterprise and Ontology aim to solve one of the biggest challenges of digital voting — user authentication and identification. The companies specifically plan to apply Ontology’s new decentralized identity solution known as ONT ID. Artem Kalikhov, chief product officer at Waves …

Japanese firm Layer X will be partnering with a digital identity application called xID to build a blockchain-based voting system in the Japanese city of Kaga. In a Thursday announcement from LayerX, the Tokyo-based company said it will be developing the electronic voting project in an effort to promote safe and secure elections for the city of 68,000 inhabitants. The firm stated that the cost and stability of current electronic voting systems in the region needed to be addressed. “Voting over the Internet presents more challenges, such as preventing double voting, technical hurdles to keep ballots secret, and the cost …

The 2020 United States presidential election was met with an increase in mail-in ballots due to COVID-19 concerns. Yet while many Americans stayed away from polling stations this year, postal delays, rejected ballots, and other challenges emerged. Unsurprisingly, better ways for casting votes during major elections quickly became a hot topic of discussion. This has also led some in the crypto community advocating with renewed vigor for a blockchain-based voting system to be used in the future presidential elections. While the promises of blockchain include trust, transparency and immutability, a group of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer …

Until recently, the use of blockchain in elections was perceived as nothing more than an experiment. However, during the recent United States presidential election, some tried to turn the public's perception of the possibilities of blockchain technology. For example, the Associated Press, one of the largest U.S. media outlets, published the election results on the Ethereum and EOS blockchains. Does this results call, however, suggest that the time to use blockchain in elections has come, and does it make sense to use the technology if the information source is centralized? Being on a blockchain doesn’t make data trustworthy Criticizing the …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Binance’s chief executive Changpeng Zhao or CZ and Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin are in furious agreement that a new blockchain-based voting system is required to improve democratic processes in the United States. But it won’t be as easy to implement as one might think. Responding to prolonged uncertainty over the result of the controversial 2020 U.S. presidential election, CZ tweeted that now is the right time for developers to build “a blockchain based mobile voting app.” Binance’s CEO argued that such a voting system would reduce the time taken to confirm the outcome of an election, enhance voters’ privacy, and …

The second-ever governance proposal for the Uniswap decentralized exchange (DEX) is more than halfway to reaching a quorum with a little over 30 hours to go. If passed, the proposal will see 12,619 wallet addresses that interacted with Uniswap via a proxy contract receive 400 UNI tokens each. 5.05 million UNI in total will be allocated to the users of MyEtherWallet, Argent, Dharma, DeFi Saver, Nuo, Eidoo, Opyn, Furucombo, Monolith, and Rebalance. The proposal was put forward by Compound-based lending and savings protocol Dharma, who claimed its users felt “left out” by the initial distribution. The cohort of proxies were …

The first governance vote for decentralized exchange Uniswap has ended in failure, despite the proposal attracting overwhelming support of 98% of votes cast. Despite this, it fell roughly 1% short of the 40 million vote threshold needed for approval by the close of voting. The poll ended earlier today, with almost 39.6 million UNI staked in favor, compared to roughly 700,000 opposed. DeFi blogger Danger ”Safetythird” Zhang described the vote as “the DeFi equivalent of winning the popular vote but losing the electoral college.” Ironically, the proposal sought to reduce the number of tokens needed to submit and pass proposals. …

The French commune of Verneuil-sur-Seine is using blockchain technology to vote in a consultation over a 50-year-old road project between three towns. According to Verneuil-sur-Seine’s official website, the commune as well as nearby towns Vernouillet and Chapet are allowing blockchain-based votes through the Yvelinoise-based startup Avosvotes from Oct. 1–8. Residents can voice their opinions on a road bypass between the towns of Orgeval to Les Mureaux near the Seine River by voting for or against the project. The blockchain voting app reportedly verifies residents’ identities, provides certificates stored on the Tezos blockchain as proof votes were cast through smart contracts, …

Close to 30,000 votes were recorded on the blockchain during the Russian parliamentary elections in what appears to have been the biggest case of blockchain-based voting yet. The blockchain component of the online voting platform was built by Waves Enterprise. The voting concluded early yesterday, and according to the chief product officer of Waves Enterprise, Artem Kalikhov, everything went off without any hiccups. He told Cointelegraph that the elections took place on the permissioned network run by Rostelecom. The firm was contracted by Russia’s Central Election Commission, which, in turn, subcontracted Waves Enterprise to build the blockchain part of the …