Blockchain-Based Voting System Used in Thai Party Primaries
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The Democratic Party of Thailand has carried out its primary elections solely on a blockchain. By implementing a blockchain-based voting system, the party made history. It became the first major political party in the world to do so.
The primaries used a live e-voting network powered by the Zcoin blockchain. More than 120,000 voters participated between November 1 and November 9. This was a record turnout compared to the usual 250 voters. It also marked the first time a major Thai political party chose its leader through input from all members. This occurred ahead of the country’s first general election since the 2014 military coup.
A few days earlier, reports mentioned a viral protest music video titled Rap Against Dictatorship. It gained over 30 million views in two weeks. After the government threatened to censor the video on YouTube, an anonymous user saved it using the decentralized file system IPFS to preserve it on the blockchain. The user then recorded the video in a transaction on the Zcoin blockchain, which is based on the Zerocoin protocol.
Incorporating this concept into their primaries, the Thai Democratic Party also used IPFS to maintain the integrity of election records. Voters participated by either voting manually at physical polling stations running on the Raspberry Pi system or through a mobile voting app that requested photo ID.
The system then encrypted the voting tallies and identification documents into information packets and stored them on IPFS. Furthermore, election candidates and the Thai Election Commission recorded the hashes on the Zcoin blockchain, ensuring auditability and immutability.
Poramin Insom, the founder and lead developer of Zcoin, made his thoughts known on the election: “I am very proud that Zcoin played a role in making Thailand’s first large-scale e-vote, a reality, which saw greater voter participation and transparency. I believe we have achieved a huge milestone in our country’s political history and hope that other political parties or even the government not just in Thailand but in the region can look to using blockchain technology in enabling large-scale e-voting or polling.”
In summary
Blockchain technology has scored a major feat in Thailand. The country’s Democratic Party, which is the main opposition party, successfully carried out its primary elections on the Zcoin blockchain through a blockchain-based voting system and a live e-voting network. The election registered over 120,000 participants as opposed to the 250 it normally records.
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