A blockchain voting project netted $10,000 in a recent contest organized by cybersecurity firm Kapersky Labs.

Dubbed Votebook, the proposed system connects voting machines via a private blockchain run by, say, a local elections authority. The Votebook concept would enable constituents to check that their votes were actually counted, according to the team, which hails from New York University.

As the team behind the project explained in their pitch, hosted on the website of The Economist:

“Votebook not only satisfies the requirements of an acceptable voting system, it is also realistically feasible immediately, with minimal disruption of voter expectations. We can and should harness the power of blockchain technology to serve democracy today.”

The idea of backing up voting records on a blockchain has long been cited as a potential use case, one previously highlighted during a speech by Delaware judge J Travis Laster. Even the local government in Moscow has been testing possible applications for blockchain-based voting.

A research paper published in October by a think tank run by the EU Parliament also explored the concept, going as far as to propose that the bitcoin blockchain be used for this purpose by tying votes to transactions on the network.

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