Those with doubts about Bitcoin's viability have some new ammunition, after the Bitcoin Foundation fluffed a board election it tried to run using its own technology.

News of the election emerged last December and voting eventually generated the need for a run-off election to determine final winners.

That election didn't get off to a great start when email notifications about the poll didn't all land. Then the foundation had a the-medium-is-the-message moment and decided it would be an excellent idea to develop a blockchain-based voting system. Collaboration platform swarm.fund put up its hand to host that effort, with a caveat that “Should we run into any technical issues during the voting process, we will re-set and use Helios, our previous system, for voting.”

Technical issues did indeed come to pass, leading to a ”reboot” of the election and this explanation from Bitcoin Foundation director of marketing and communications Jinyoung Lee Englund:

In the wee hours of this morning, we launched the first on-blockchain voting system for our runoff elections. In the past several hours, we’ve received tons of feedback from our members (thanks guys!) and we hear you. This initial version is clunky, imperfect and a bit confusing. Being the first of its kind, we knew it would be. No system is perfect on its first day out. So thanks for hanging in there and for your willingness to think outside of the box with us.

The election's result was declared on Sunday, with “libertarian/voluntaryist and a big fan of decentralization. Olivier Janssens” and Cato Institute senior fellow Jim Harper winning seats. The Cato Institute is “dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace” meaning both the new directors of the foundation look to be a fair way to the right of politics. ®