Russia’s Ruling Party United Russia Launches Blockchain-Based Voting System

Local news outlet TASS reports that Russia’s ruling political party, United Russia, has launched a blockchain-based e-voting system, which is expected to be used for the nation’s primary elections that will be held on September 8.

Citizens who have passed authorization on the public services portal will have to access to this new voting system.

United Russia said in a press release:

Access to voting via the Internet will be provided to citizens who have passed authorization through the public services portal, This means that linking to the polling station will be obtained from their passport data without the possibility of correcting them. For people, such a platform will significantly simplify the voting procedure itself.

The new electronic service also integrates with social media, and allows candidates to upload media and distribute information:

Candidates will be able to fill in their own personal pages on this site: put news, videos, photos, distribute their pages – the personal account is now integrated with all social networks. We also made an adaptive version of the site for mobile phones.

Voting is considered to be a strong application of blockchain technology, because of the transparency and immutability that blockchain offers.

Head of IT Projects at the Digital Party group, Vyacheslav Sateev, concurs with this:

The main principle is to make the elections transparent, eliminating all intermediate links in the electoral process. Collect and provide all information on the voting process, violations, the results of the will directly from the polling station or even from the voter himself.

However, Russia’s primaries are not binding. In the past, candidates from United Russia who have not participated in the primaries have participated in the general election.

This development, along with others, suggest that Russia is picking up its pace in adopting blockchain technology. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently ordered the nation’s lawmakers to form a regulatory framework for the cryptocurrency space, setting a deadline of July 1. The lower house of the parliament, the State Duma, is also launching an oil-backed cryptocurrency.