{"id":38015,"date":"2018-03-21T11:01:47","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T18:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cryptoslate.com\/?p=38015"},"modified":"2020-04-28T22:37:01","modified_gmt":"2020-04-28T21:37:01","slug":"sierra-leone-blockchain-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cryptoslate.com\/sierra-leone-blockchain-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Blockchain Election in Sierra Leone? Not Quite"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently it has been all over the news that Sierra Leone held the first “Blockchain-Powered” elections. The theory of using blockchain technology during elections has been around since the technology started being explored outside of the cryptocurrency world. It would allow governments to limit electoral fraud, increase security and provide transparency.<\/p>\n

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Citizens wait outside at 6AM to vote in Sierra Leone's recent elections. (Source:\u00a0Nick Piggott)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sierra Leone<\/h2>\n

Sierra Leone is a small West African country, that is most commonly known from the movie Blood Diamond, the brutal 11-year civil war in the 90s, and most recently the Ebola outbreak which killed approximately\u00a03,995<\/a> people in 2014.<\/p>\n

The West African nation has beautiful white sand beaches and was a place of refuge for returned slaves in the 18th and 19th century.<\/p>\n

History of Elections<\/h2>\n

This will be the third democratic elections since the civil war ended in 2002<\/a>.
\nDirty tactics are common around election time, in the 2012\u00a0violence was a common underlying (or right out in the open) theme of the elections<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Counting the votes in Sierra Leone. (Source: Nick Piggot)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Partisan reporting was taken for the norm and voters were ‘coerced' into voting for certain parties. Not exactly democracy at its finest. This year the candidate for the opposition party\u2019s house was raided by police under suspicion of \u2018hacking\u2019 the NEC database.<\/p>\n

The Rumors<\/h2>\n

The news was flooded recently with headlines such as:\u00a0“Sierra Leone just ran the first blockchain-based elections,” “Sierra Leone is the first country to run a blockchain-powered election” and “First Results of Sierra Leone's Blockchain Vote Are In,” were all dominant headlines.<\/p>\n

However, the election was not powered by blockchain as was reported. Where did the rumors start?<\/p>\n

Swiss blockchain company, Agora, fabricated the claims and released a statement declaring that the country had\u00a0utilized blockchain tech to tally and audit the election results.<\/h3>\n

The National Election Commission (NEC) of Sierra Leone released an official statement on Twitter on March 18 to set the record straight. The tweet quoted the NEC Chair Mohamed Conteh saying that \u201cthe NEC has not used, and is not using blockchain technology in any part of the electoral process.\u201d<\/p>\n

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#NEC<\/a> Chair Mohamed Conteh makes clear that "the NEC has not used, and is not using #blockchain<\/a> #technology<\/a> in any part of the electoral process.\u201d #votesalone<\/a><\/p>\n

— National Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone (@NECsalone) March 18, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n