United States Postal Service (USPS) Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

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The United States Postal Service (USPS) has reportedly filed a patent for a blockchain-based mail-in voting system.

Following President Donald Trump’s conclusion that mail-in voting would represent ballots all over the place and fraudulent ballots would be named after dogs and dead people, the patent that was filed back in February 2020 was made public on Thursday 13th August.

The public patent application that contains 47 pages is majorly occupied with diagrams showing various components of the proposed mail-in voting system, coupled with each stage of the electronic process.

The patent filed by the postal service reads in part as follows:

“A voting system can use the security of blockchain and the mail to provide a reliable voting system. A registered voter receives a computer-readable code in the mail and confirms identity and confirms correct ballot information in an election. The system separates voter identification and votes to ensure vote anonymity, and stores votes on a distributed ledger in a blockchain.”

“Often a voter is not able to or does not desire to go to a polling place to cast a vote. An election official in a jurisdiction may wish to send secure ballots via mail. Or, a jurisdiction may opt to utilize electronic resources for voting. In such cases, a secure voting system is desired.

The security of a voting system can be increased by using the dependability and security of the United States Postal Service or similar entity, and this can be incorporated with a secure computer system using a blockchain or distributed ledger to ensure vote security and to prevent tampering or modification of electronic voting results.”

Obviously, coronavirus pandemic is causing a twist in virtually everything across the world, including the process of the coming US presidential election.

There has been a political debate over the system that would be adopted to restrain the spread of the virus during the election. It has now been concluded that mail-in voting system would be adopted, but some people are still of the opinion that the system would encourage fraudulence during the election, hence the need for blockchain technology.

tensinahnd on August 16th, 2020 at 06:27 UTC »

I wonder why the postal service filed for the patent and not the FEC.

J_Aetherwing on August 16th, 2020 at 06:20 UTC »

https://youtu.be/LkH2r-sNjQs Looks like the USPS needs to watch some more Tom Scott...

People can't trust something they don't understand and most people don't understand blockchain.

beholdersi on August 16th, 2020 at 06:06 UTC »

Can some ELI5 blockchain? I’ve only ever seen it used in reference to crypto mining so I never looked into it.