South Korea’s National Election Commission (NEC) To Test Innovative E-Voting Blockchain System

Innovative E-Voting System Involving Blockchain Planned For Testing In South Korea

Blockchain technology is being adapted for a variety of uses, primarily due to the transparent nature of the ledger that makes tracking information and products easier. South Korea has decided to apply this ledger to a new online voting system. According to the National Election Commission (NEC), the testing phase of this blockchain system will begin next month.

The pilot will start in December, and the government plans to enlist the help of the Ministry of Science and ICT. The current system that the NEC employs, K-voting, is already used by over 5 million people in the country. However, the potential for fraud and hacking led the government to seek out this alternative solution.

Hopefully, according to the NEC, the new system will help with the security and transparency needed for such a service. The NEC believes that these votes would be more “credible,” considering the distributed ledger, and there would be almost no way to manipulate it. Voting data could be directly accessed by the candidates and observers of the election.

With this pilot, the government will have a foundation that can be used in other ways, along with other voting systems that are hosted online. The goal is to essentially integrate it into the current voting system if the trial proves to be beneficial. During the trial, the performance of blockchain will be tested via online surveys with the Seoul National University’s Blockchain Society and the Korea Internet & Security Agency.

Along with this project, the NEC is working on researching Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT) technology. It is clear that using blockchain technology for voting systems is a growing use case, however. A similar system was deployed in Tsukuba in Japan, allowing citizens to vote on various development programs. In West Virginia, a voting app was put out in August for military personnel to cast ballots while overseas.