Moscow Government Plans to Use Blockchain Tech in E-Voting for Parliamentary Election

The city council of Moscow, Russia’s capital city, has submitted a bill to use blockchain technology for an electronic voting system, major Russian news agency Tass reported on Tuesday, Feb. 26.

The Moscow City Duma, a local parliament of the Russian capital city, plans to protect the process and results of electronic voting in the upcoming elections through the use of blockchain technology. The news was announced by one of the authors of the relevant bill, the deputy of ruling party United Russia Dmitry Vyatkin.

Vyatkin underlined that the technology would allow for the separate storage of the personal data of voters and the results of voting, adding: “It will be impossible to connect them. This is exactly how blockchain technology works.” He also stressed that it would help to avoid electoral fraud, which the deputy called “dirty electoral technologies.”

As Cointelegraph reported on Dec. 18, Russia conducted a reportedly successful regional election with 40,000 participants in Saratov Oblast via the blockchain-driven electronic polling system, dubbed Polys, which had been developed by Kaspersky Lab in 2017.

Last month, the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center of Thailand announced the development of the electronic voting system also backed with blockchain technology, as Cointelegraph wrote on Jan. 3.

Back in May, Cointelegraph released an analysis explaining the pros and cons of the potential usage of blockchain technology for electoral processes.