Sierra Leone coming from an history of electoral violence with several incidents recorded within days prior to 2018 presidential election, coupled with the susceptibility to election fraud in the past. it however made for an appropriate testing arena for a technology designed to expanding equity in the electoral system through the adoption of Agora which is a blockchain-based digital voting system designed for governments and institutions.
On March 7, 2018, block-chain Agora oversaw the outcome of Sierra Leone's presidential election, marking the first use of the technology on this ability.
For the voters, the system wasn't any exceptional than prior elections. They arrived at their polling units and after being confirmed by an electoral officers using their IDs, votes were casted by paper poll but what occurred subsequently was different from the elections in the past.
Jaron Lukasiewicz Agora operations officer explained to coin desk that the votes were manually stored on a permissioned blockchain.
Permissioned blockchains are non identical to public blockchains like those aiding cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. Any individual can validate transactions on a public blockchain but Only approved individuals can validate transactions on a permissioned blockchain.
The blockchain allowed for results to be made available in lesser time than it would have taken election officials to replicate same.
Agoras Eventual hopes is to eliminate the use of paper ballots altogether, enabling voters to authenticate their votes through private digital instruments. This will likely decrease election costs, broaden voter accessibility, and rid nations of a the susceptibility of election fraud.
Nevertheless, Agora's success in Sierra Leone marks a success in the trail to a more transparent and reasonable democracy developed on blockchain technology.
Concluding Remark
A disputed claim to the seat of power mustn't assume overwhelming Importance over the lives of the people. In fact the beneficiaries of an election must at all times be the people, for that is a major indicator of a democracy. A blockchain based election reduces the doubts that arise as to the credibility of an electoral process and can further end the loss of lives through electoral violence.
