The Korean Ministry of Science and Technology alongside Korea’s Internet and Security Agency, plan to explore blockchain in online voting. According to Yonhap News, blockchain solutions for donations, social welfare, renewable energy, and postal services will also be investigated.
The Korean government has approved a pilot of a blockchain-based voting system through the National Election Commission that can be used by more than 10 million people. This is likely one of the largest-scale blockchain online voting systems.
It is hard to predict whether there will be another disaster such as COVID that will require alternatives to in-person voting. But the Korean government is keen to be prepared if there is.
In Korea’s solution, voting results will be anonymized, and voters will be identified through decentralized identifier (DiD) technology in order to prevent double voting.
If successful, online voting has other advantages beyond adhering to social distancing protocols, such as making the process less time consuming for citizens, potentially making counting more efficient, increasing voter turnout, and reducing associated election costs.
Meanwhile, as part of the Ministry of Science’s other blockchain projects, digital wallet Copay will promote a donation management system that enables donors to track the whole process of the donations. As for the blockchain expansion in postal services, the Korean Postal Service Headquarters will launch an integrated customer management system that enables customers to see and trace all postal services. So far, no specific pilots have been planned for social welfare and renewable energy solutions.
Ledger Insights(2021.06.24) Korea to trial blockchain in large scale online voting
retrieved from https://www.ledgerinsights.com/korea-to-trial-blockchain-in-large-scale-online-voting/
