A blockchain company based in Japan, LayerX has entered into a partnership with a digital identity application known as xID, for developing a voting system based on blockchain technology. They have done so in the Japanese city of Kaga. The announcement was made on Thursday by LayerX, in which the Toky-based company explained that they were going to develop an electronic voting project. This project is being undertaken in an attempt to promote safe and secure elections in Kaga, a city that has a population of 68,000. As per LayerX, the reason for this new project is to address the cost and stability of the current electronic voting system in the region, which doesn’t really paint a good picture.
LayerX used their announcement to provide some detailed insight into the challenges of voting over the internet. Some of these problems include the technical hoops that people have to jump through for keeping the ballots secret, preventing double voting, not to mention the significant costs of the voting devices. According to the announcement made by LayerX, the firm had already researched and developed an electronic voting protocol. It claimed that this could strike a balance between the transparency of the voting process and the confidentiality of the voting records.
The company went on to say that with the xID application, they will be able to strengthen the voting system they have developed even further. This will be accomplished by verifying a voter’s identity and this will ensure that every individual gets only one ballet and there is no double voting. As a matter of fact, LayerX said that their system would even allow the voters to take a look at their respective voting results. Another notable feature is being able to verify the recording and aggregation processes independently for every individual vote.
This includes ensuring whether or not they were done in the correct way in the blockchain network. The first officials in Japan to refer to their city as ‘Blockchain City’ were none other than those of Kaga. According to the reports, the initiative had been developed for counteracting the decline of the rural area population in the country by encouraging the use of innovative technologies in both the private and public sectors. In addition, it is also worth noting that a similar announcement had also been made by LayerX back in November. This announcement had to do with the company joining the Tsukuba City’s ‘smart city’ initiative.
These moves indicate that Japan is trying to make prominent improvements to its infrastructure with the use of blockchain technology, similar to many other countries. This technology is being used in a number of industries by countries all over the world and only time will tell if it turns out to be effective. Whether it is the use of the technology itself or for the purpose of exploring its potential in developing a central bank digital currency (CBDC), it has got many countries hooked to it and is proving to be quite useful.
