W. It goes. To use the blockchain-based mobile app for medium-term voting

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West Virginia will leave members of the armed forces and their families deployed overseas to vote via smartphone or tablet using a blockchain app developed by a start-up in Salt Lake City, Voatz.

Voters use the app otherwise they would have to submit paperless votes by post or vote on a landline phone.

The move means that the state will become the first in the United States to use the blockchain in a voting system in a general election.

After being elected in January 2017, West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner charged IT staff to investigate mobile voting options for 8,000 West Virginia military members abroad. Warner, a retired US Army officer with four children who are also all current or former army officers, cited his inability to vote when deployed in Afghanistan as one of the reasons for his efforts.

"The traditional absentee ballot process is not useful for military personnel in remote areas that do not have a reliable postal service or landline – both are mandatory if foreign voters participate in the absentee voting process "said Mike Queen, Warner's deputy chief of staff. "But everyone has a cell phone, right?"

After examining half a dozen options, Warner opted for Voatz. The company has declared that it has conducted over 30 successful pilot projects ranging from conventions of state parties to student government elections. In the most important elections, more than 15,000 votes were cast, declared a blog post.

  Blockchain vote for iPhone iOS Voatz

Application for mobile voting of Voatz iPhone

families wishing to use the Voatz app will need only an Apple or Android smartphone and a state or Federal ID.

The Voatz application uses an authorized blockchain based on the HyperLedger framework created for the first time by IBM and now supported by the Linux platform. Eight validation nodes will be used in the general election, split equally between AWS and Microsoft Azure, each of which is geographically distributed, according to Voatz.

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