Crypto Valley, a cryptocurrency haven in Zug, Switzerland has made headlines recently for the local authorities move to develop a blockchain based voting system which utilises the towns current digital ID system.

The idea is simple. Within this, citizens of Zug are able to vote on local affairs through a mobile phone app that is validated on the blockchain . This ensures transparent and fair voting and could very well pave the way for not just the local political climate in Switzerland, but quite possible across the rest of the world too.

Recently, authorities have rolled out a test vote, where citizens are required to vote on fictional scenarios, in order to test how the technology would work. Reports out today suggest that these tests have been a success, though the turnout of voters was relatively low.

According to Cointelegraph, Dieter Müller, the Head of Communications for the Zug authorities has spoken about the test, stating:

“The premiere was a success. The small-scale vote involved only 72 out of the 240 citizens with access to the online voting system, who participated in the non-binding trial vote between June 25 and July 1. The number of participants could have been higher.”

See more from Cointelegraph for yourself, here-

https://cointelegraph.com/news/zug-s-head-of-comms-calls-city-blockchain-voting-test-a-success-despite-low-turnout

The figures presented by Müller do suggest that going forward, Zug may struggle to actually receive significant data from its citizens in order to inform votes. With a 30% voter turnout, the authorities would not be able to make any changes based upon results of such a vote, as a 70% majority of non-voters would exist. Of course, we need to bear in mind that in this instance, as the vote was a test and was based on fictional propositions, perhaps a number of people didn’t feel the need to get involved, nor did they feel they had the time because ultimately, the vote would account for nothing.

Regardless of the poor turn out, it does seem that at the very least, the technology powering the vote, combined with its integration into the towns current digital ID system has worked, so in that sense, the test was a success.

Now the real task - get people on board with the technology. Though, isn’t that the challenge for the entire blockchain industry worldwide, anyway?