Blockchain accelerator, Aeternity deploys Univote in 2020, a voting application designed to enable voting exercises on a decentralized network.
A prototype for the project exists on the ethereum test-net. Later in the year, Aeternity will deploy the application on its main-net. It opens the doors to blockchain voting for Africans everywhere.
According to a press release,
“We personally believe, the need for a platform that is not only truly secure but dependable will be a beacon of hope and a new face of translucency across all socio-political and socio-economic threads of every community. We not only believe that this will change the narrative but create actual results to differ materially but cause an ample urgent change.”
The blockchain developer community in the University of Jos (Unijos) developed Univote on the test-net. Their work will power the first election of its kind on the continent.
Blockchain-powered elections can be cheaper and fairer than more traditional methods of election. However, sceptics remain adamant that people, not technology has the greatest influence on the fairness and costs of elections.
In 2018, votes manually recorded in 280 polling centres across Sierra Leone were recorded by Agora. Agora is a foundation offering digital voting solutions. Agora uses status as an independent observer by NEC to test its technology.
UniVote recently gained the support of NACOSS (National Approval Council for Security Systems), the University of Jos Department of Computer Science, and the ICT Directorate of Unijos for the use of its technology
UniVote believes their technology will improve democracy.
“Democracy is almost everything the blockchain stands for freedom, security and equality, and transparency. In our opinion, the blockchain platform was created for this specific purpose, not having innovations like this running on the platform will be a waste of tech.”
The team plan to hold a pilot of the platform on 16 January 2020 at the University of Jos in Nigeria. The team writest their paragraph in the history books with another symbolic moment in blockchain while the revolution grows.
