Screven County, Georgia made historical past on November 5, 2024 when it turned the primary county in america to make use of the Bitcoin blockchain to safeguard the outcomes of its elections.
The Screven County Board of Elections labored with Easy Proof, a U.S. firm that protects digital information utilizing the Bitcoin blockchain, to make sure that their election outcomes couldn’t be altered.
Stacy Scott Mincey, Screven County Election Supervisor, employed Easy Proof to ensure that the dealing with of votes in her county wasn’t referred to as into query the way in which it was in one other Georgia county through the 2020 elections.
“Considered one of my objectives was to do every thing I might to ensure that individuals within the county felt safe, that their votes counted, particularly with the heightened issues round safety and voter fraud,” Mincey advised me in an interview. “Utilizing Easy Proof was only one extra step that we took to ensure that our outcomes couldn’t be tampered with in any approach.”
What Easy Proof Does
Easy Proof gained notoriety when its immutable proof service was used to safeguard the outcomes of Guatemala’s most up-to-date presidential election, which was detailed within the documentary Immutable Democracy.
Easy Proof makes use of an open-source protocol referred to as OpenTimestamps, developed by Peter Todd, a former Bitcoin Core developer.
The protocol permits cryptographic timestamping, which makes use of hash capabilities to protect data on Bitcoin’s immutable ledger. The knowledge is saved within the OP_RETURN perform of a Bitcoin transaction. That is the place the social gathering sending a transaction can embrace arbitrary data, which is analogous to the “memo” house on a bodily examine.
Anybody can then confirm this immutable proof on Easy Proof’s platform or independently in a trustless method by way of the Bitcoin blockchain. Put a less complicated approach, Easy Proof permits the general public to confirm the election outcomes and different official paperwork as soon as they’re secured by the Bitcoin blockchain.
Easy Proof And Screven County
Within the case of the Screven County elections, the data saved on the blockchain was the Election Abstract Experiences, which comprise vote tallies, and the Assertion of Votes Solid, which gives a county-wide overview of election outcomes and different election particulars.
Carlos Toriello, Elections Lead at Easy Proof, mentioned that his group labored to make it as straightforward as doable for Mincey to guard these paperwork.
“We wished to ensure that this was painless for Stacy,” Toriello advised me in an interview.
He went on to share that every one Mincey needed to do was electronic mail the paperwork to Easy Proof’s immutable proof service, which routinely timestamped the paperwork on the blockchain.
The primary occasion of this timestamping occurred at 7:54 p.m. EST on November 5, 2024 and may be considered by way of its Easy Proof verification web page.
“Block quantity 869,047 is the primary block in Bitcoin’s chain to comprise proof of a U.S. election,” mentioned Toriello.
Screven County’s Voting System
Whereas Easy Proof protects voting information, it doesn’t make sure the legitimacy of the votes. Within the U.S., this accountability falls on the native board of elections.
“In Georgia, the Secretary of State does an awesome job of constructing certain that the elections are safe,” mentioned Mincey.
“We use machines, however we’ve paper ballots, too. So, if there’s an issue, we are able to return and hand rely the paper ballots,” she added.
Mincey went on to share that the machines rely the ballots and produce the aforementioned reviews. Nevertheless, she and her group have a way of checking that the reviews are a minimum of largely right.
“Our county does an audit the place we hand rely a portion of the ballots to ensure they match what we bought from the machine,” mentioned Mincey. “I believe that is an awesome further step of safety that we’ve to ensure that the elections are legitimate.”
How Mincey Discovered Easy Proof
Not solely does Mincey have a deep data of how voting works in her state, however she’s additionally fairly conversant in Bitcoin. And it’s truly due to Bitcoin that she met Toriello.
Members of Mincey’s meetup group attended Bitcoin 2024 this previous July (Mincey couldn’t make the occasion). The group members met Toriello and Easy Proof’s sales space on the convention. Toriello and the Easy Proof group had been there elevating consciousness about how public information may be protected in an immutable method utilizing Bitcoin.
“Our name to motion was Uncle Honey Badger needs you to guard the elections with Bitcoin,” mentioned Toriello with amusing.
(The Honey Badger, recognized for its toughness and resilience, is usually thought-about Bitcoin’s mascot.)
One of many group members spoke with Toriello on the occasion and stayed in contact with him afterwards. In September, Mincey’s meetup group invited Toriello to talk just about at considered one of their conferences.
“He spoke on the assembly, and afterwards I began speaking to him as a result of I used to be very intrigued about how we might be certain that our outcomes had been verified,” mentioned Mincey. “I used to be simply blown away at how they used Easy Proof in Guatemala.”
In late October, Mincey proposed utilizing Easy Proof at a board assembly, and the board voted in favor of it. Mincey contacted Toriello, and the remainder is now historical past.
Additional Implementation Of Easy Proof
Toriello is optimistic after Easy Proof and Screven County’s profitable endeavor and would now prefer to see Georgia implement Easy Proof’s companies statewide for its subsequent elections.
“We proved that we are able to implement this inside per week or so in a county,” mentioned Toriello. “Why not do that in each county within the state of Georgia from right here on out?”
Mincey, too, want to see each county in Georgia use Easy Proof. She truly wished this to be the case on this previous election, however time wasn’t on her aspect.
“I hoped that I might have launched it to our state-level individuals in order that it had extra widespread use,” she mentioned. “However, this time, there was no time to actually get it out statewide.”
Toriello additionally has his sights set past Georgia.
“We have already made inroads in a bunch of various locations round the entire nation,” mentioned Toriello, who believes that extra counties and states will see the worth in what Easy Proof gives after this success story in Screven County.
“I need this to unfold like wildfire as authorities see that is easy to implement they usually can afford it,” he added.
“We’re very optimistic.”
