The city of Denver in the US state of Colorado has announced that it plans to use blockchain technology in the upcoming municipal elections. The app will allow citizens outside the county to vote through a smartphone application. The blockchain technology will bring security, transparency, and ease to audit the votes. For this reason, military personnel on missions outside the United States may participate in the Denver electoral process.

The application is being developed in collaboration with Tusk Philanthropies and Voatz, which has already applied technology in West Virginia. Besides, the company has conducted more than 30 successful pilot projects applying blockchain technology in electoral processes. According to Denver election director Jocelyn Bucaro, the application will facilitate the voting process as a whole. However, it is not only the military that will benefit, but disabled people will also be able to vote using the application.

The use of the application will not replace the traditional voting process, with physical attendance at the polling station. In order to vote using the application, the voter must prove the impossibility of attending the polling station. In addition, you must complete the authentication process on the Voatz application and wait for the registration approval.

The use of blockchain in the Brazilian elections

Brazilian elections innovated by creating the world’s most digitized electoral process by using Electronic Voting Machines. However, the Voting Machines do not have any connection to the internet and therefore can’t use blockchain technology. On the other hand, there are applications such as the Voto Legal platform that uses the blockchain to bring more transparency to the elections. Therefore, even if the government does not adopt the technology officially, several initiatives can apply for their benefits in the Brazilian elections.

However, it is possible that blockchain technology can integrate Voting Machines in the near future. I say this because, in a technology event, this writer who writes to you, talked with members of the team of developers of the Electronic Voting Machines. On that occasion, we had a long technical discussion that generated a great deal of reflection for both sides. At that moment, the use of the blockchain was not in the plans of the team. However, who knows anything may have changed after our conversation !?

The Coindesk portal reported the application of blockchain technology in the Denver elections on March 7.