BLOCKO analyzes blockchain technology and security voting system examples mentioned in United States Postal Service’s (USPS) patent application.
On 18th November, BLOCKO (CEO Kim Won-beom) released a report on ‘USPS’ vision of blockchain voting as described in its patent application’, which introduces a method for the construction of a voting process that combines existing electronic voting systems with blockchain technology.
The 14th issue of BLOCKO’s blockchain reports, which provide overall insight into the blockchain industry, introduces and analyzes the blockchain technology and secure voting system examples envisioned by the USPS, as described in the USPS’ patent application.
In February, the USPS filed a patent application for applying blockchain to voting systems, asserting that ‘a voting system can use the security of blockchain and the mail to provide a reliable voting system’.
The patent breaks down the entire process of the voting system into stages, from voting registration and ballot distribution to the storing of election results on the blockchain and smart contract-based data inspection.
The USPS’ secure voting system records and inspects data via a public blockchain or a private blockchain (operated in a distributed manner by various election management bodies) and consists of nodes that record and inspect election results on the blockchain; an external system for verifying voter identity, coordinating the mailing of ballots, and issuing unique tokens and Electronic Postmarks (EPM); an external database for transmitting data through oracles, and a vault database that is managed by a particular organization and saves information related to the voter, the voting ballot, identification data, unique tokens.
In this way, information about the voters and the voting results submitted by voters in various ways could be saved on separate databases, and every stage of the process until the result values are stored on the confirmation blockchain could each be recorded on different blockchains, enabling mutual comparison and maintaining anonymity.
BLOCKO’s CEO Won-Beom Kim commented, “The USPS has received attention for its game-changing act of publishing a patent application for an electronic voting system that combines the traditional postal service with new blockchain technology. From the inspection of voting results to voter registration and election management through a verification smart contract, the USPS’ proposal lays out a process that is highly trustworthy. Korea’s National Election Commission also launched a pilot project to incorporate blockchain technology in online voting in 2018. BLOCKO has been concentrating on technological innovation for the sake of expanding the range and scale of blockchain application to voting systems, beginning with the construction and management of a blockchain-based voting system for the Gyeonggido government’s Ddabok Community Support Program in 2017, in which more than 7,300 voters participated.”
