Moscow City Duma left “problematic” blockchain vote for another two years

On April 14, 239 deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation spoke in favor of extending the experiment with electronic voting in Moscowin elections at all levels, despite previously identified problems in the system. This was reported by RIA «New Day».

The author of the bill, the deputy of "United Russia"Irina Belykh said that remote voting on the basis of the blockchain was tested by hackers, and several dozen comments on her work were eliminated. Particular attention was paid to preventing failures:

«The system was equipped with a permanent equipment twin operating in parallel, its switching occurs automatically in case of failure».

Also, according to the deputy, the electronic ballotwill be stored on the user’s device for the entire voting period, and observers will be able to «monitor all transactions in the blockchain».

The initiative was criticized by the Duma opposition. Communist Party deputy Valery Rashkin recalled that all four system tests prior to the Moscow City Duma elections "were torn down, were invalid, were not fixed," and the system’s inoperability was confirmed by a major failure during the vote.

“We are categorically against this experiment,because it leads, in our opinion, in general to the elimination of fair elections as such. Observation in this form is impossible, and now absolutely any data can be entered into the voter lists, ”- the parliamentarian pointed out.

Rashkin also said that the courts refuse to accept cases of election fraud by electronic voting.

Earlier, ForkLog examined in detail why the voting system in Moscow failed and whether it is applicable at all for elections.