Current Affairs - International - Discussion

Sierra Leone, a West African country has become the first country in the world to deploy blockchain technology in election process. Sierra Leone attained this distinction by deploying blockchain-based solution to count the votes and provide proof in the recently held Presidential elections. The blockchain based solution used in Sierra Leone's election was developed by a Switzerland based voting technology company, Agora. Total 16 candidates contested this election, and Agora used a proprietary blockchain distributed ledger to keep track of the votes. Based on this news, it can be inferred that blockchain-based solution that uses a publicly visible ledger for keeping track of elections has potential to complement and eventually replace electronic voting machines.