The presidential elections in Russia will be held this year and the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) will introduce a novelty. The intention of the center is to use the blockchain technology to track and store the results and data of the exit polls during the election process.
The announcement was made on the official website of the center. The presidential elections in Russia are scheduled for March, 18th this year and this initiative to store the exit polls database using the blockchain technology would be one of the first initiatives in the world applied to results related to official elections.
In essence, the blockchain system will be used to store the data and results of the exit polls during the presidential voting. VTsIOM will cooperate with 2Chain, an agency specialized in marketing for the initial coin offerings (ICOs) and consultant in the area of intelligent technologies.
This way, the entire process and results of the initiative will be available on a website specifically designed for this purpose. The website will be launched on March 12th. If it proves to be successful, this initiative will form the base of a programme developed by the VTsIOM called VTSIOM digital, which could be implemented between this year and 2021.
It is worth mentioning the exit polls are a type of survey during which the voters are asked questions after coming out from the voting stations on the election day, with the goal of asking directly the people who they voted for.
Likewise, the center decided to use the blockchain technology because the results cannot be altered or changed and this technology guarantees the transparency of the entire process and it also reduces the efficiency of the hacker or pirate attacks. Besides, it solves general problems associated with the integrity of the poll data. The statement of the center says the following: “Our project provides for storage of the data that we receive during exit polls at polling stations in a special blockchain bank. This will prevent any external changes to the information, decrease the effectiveness of hacker attacks and ensure the transparency of the data collection and aggregation.”
Valery Fyodorov, the General Director of the Russian Public Opinion Research Center said: “It is a very important project in every way. Important for our center, for the research industry, for the elections in Russia. So far, in the exit polls, we had to close the site on election day so that it would not be attacked by DDoS attacks and other piracy attempts made by numerous anonymous hackers. Surveys in the blockchain has not yet been implemented in the world. We have a real possibility on March 18 to show the world exactly how this can be done.”
Denis Terekhov from 2Chain added it was very motivating and ambitious for them to become pioneers in the field of democracy.
On the other hand, Russia has already created a blockchain platform called Active Citizen and used for referendums. In the rest of the world, in countries such as South Korea and Columbia, we have seen ways to use the blockchain technology for electoral and voting processes.
