It is hard to get a grasp on the slow creep forward of the utilization of any new voting technology, especially when technologies are new and when they are unusual. The digital “distributed, decentralized, public ledger” known as blockchain technology has been spreading in this way.

Slowly, experiment by experiment, there have been attempts at testing how blockchain’s unique characteristics can be taken advantage of for the people’s benefit. Limited, local initiatives have shown that blockchain may have a real role to play.

With a new look at the changes underway, Phil Goldstein from StateTech Magazine: recently published an article about how blockchain technology is working its way into America, finding a role in several different aspects of election administration and beyond. From the article:

Blockchain technology, in and of itself, cannot replace legacy systems for databases, record keeping or transaction management, but it can enhance such systems, experts say. Blockchain voting is also getting more attention, though cybersecurity experts are skeptical about it and it has not been tried in the United States on a large scale yet.

Most state government officials are still in a wait-and-see mode about the technology, though blockchain use cases continue to proliferate. According to a 2017 National Association of State CIOs report, 63 percent of those surveyed were still investigating blockchain in state government with informal discussions, 26 percent said there were no discussions of blockchain at that time and 5 percent had adopted blockchain technology in support of some state government services.

What do you think about the technology, its applications, or its controversies? Add you comment below…