Ukraine Electoral Commission Uses NEM Blockchain for Voting Trial

A member of Ukraine’s Electoral Commission revealed in an Aug. 7 Facebook post that they are working with NEM on a blockchain voting pilot.

Oleksandr Stelmakh, head of the State Register at the Central Electoral Commission of Ukraine, appeared pleased with the ongoing tests, writing in the post that they are “continu[ing] a series of experiments applying blockchain technology within electoral voting.”

Stelmakh noted that they created a test vote using 28 nodes with the NEM blockchain “several weeks ago,” adding that “voting is still open and anyone can take part it in.”

The trial, which came about as a result of a partnership with the local NEM Ukraine, exclusively involves a testnet with test NEM tokens “kindly given by a representative of the NEM Foundation in Ukraine,” Anton Bosenko.

On the basis of current rates, Stelmakh calculated the cost of installing blockchain voting in each police station in the country would be around the equivalent of $1,227 per implementation. He writes that this is a “small price to pay” in return for immutable vote data protection.

Ukraine is in the midst of finalizing its regulatory approach to cryptocurrency, with the country’s Financial Stability Council last month supporting the idea of treating digital assets like financial instruments. Despite its relatively low electricity costs, Ukraine nonetheless has no plans to regulate the informal mining industry, Cointelegraph reported.