West Virginia authority is planning to roll out mobile voting for its midterm elections in November for the first time in the US.

The foundation of the system is based on Voatz startup. Availability will be limited “largely” to troops serving abroad as an alternative to mailed absentee ballots, and individual counties can decide whether or not to participate.

Voatz provides the data security using blockchain technology. To sign up for the app, they will need to obtain special government ID and a self-shot video for facial recognition, plus an additional layer of biometric security with either another selfie or thumbprint.

Its setup has already faced criticism from researchers despite all the innovations. The main weakness is a single-user blockchain technology that in practice is just a database, and its unpublished source code. Even if the server is well protected, there’s still the issue of insecure mobile devices and the networks people use for connections.

One of the first countries using blockchain technology in voting was Switzerland. In summer 2018 Zug municipality held elections and over 200 000 people participated in it using their smartphones.