The ruling party of the Russian Federation, United Russia, launches a blockchain-based platform for electronic voting, as reported by the local news agency TASS on March 6.
As per the reports, United Russia has launched an updated website for its primaries with the added function of e-voting. Vyacheslav Sateyev, the party’s head of IT projects stated that the vote counting process will be carried forward through blockchain technology. He also stated:
“Candidates will be able to fill in their personal pages on this site, including posting news, videos, photos, distributing their pages. The personal account is now integrated with all social networks. We have also made an adaptive version of the site for mobile phones.”
Citizens who had completed the authorization process on the said web portal can only participate in and vote. Purportedly, the e-voting system is developed to bring transparency to the electoral process and eliminate intermediates.
The straw vote held by United Russia for nominating party candidates at all levels for the general elections will be the primary stage. Decisions made in the primaries are not necessarily binding. For instance, a number of candidates from United Russia, in 2016, did not participate in the primaries ran general elections for the State Duma.
The city council of Moscow, Russia’s capital city, submitted a bill last month in order to use blockchain technology for an electronic voting system. A local parliament of the Russian capital, the Moscow City Duma, plans to protect the process and results of electronic voting in the upcoming elections through the use of blockchain technology.
