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. The latest such experiment was written up in an article from Simon Cocking of Irish Tech News:

In early 2016, the Scottish government committed to accelerate trials of digital voting. By July 2018 Edinburgh’s Wallet Services, the government’s blockchain public infrastructure partner, advocated that the future of democracy should be underpinned with distributed ledger technology, aka blockchain.

The move to blockchain technology has already been considered by The Scottish Parliament. In September 2018 Jenny Gilruth MSP for Mid Fife and Glenrothes lodged a Motion highlighting necessary electoral reform, commending YesDayScotland media portal founder Nicholas Russell, and all involved on the recent 500 miles blockchain walk. The Motion stated that blockchain will bring wider voter participation in Scotland, and be crucial to the security of any significant future national decisions.

Horizon State is a 2018 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, joining the ranks of Airbnb, Google, Kickstarter and Spotify. Horizon State technology empowers communities through the use of distributed ledger technology. This is the first time Horizon State has offered assistance on a national scale. 

The full story is found here. 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.