After major news agency Associated Press (AP) declared that they are “bringing verified election results to the blockchain,” those results have now been officially written on the Ethereum (ETH) and EOS blockchains.
“The Associated Press has counted the vote in US election since 1848. And, for the first time ever, the count will be verified and published on the blockchain,” it stands on Everipedia‘s website. Once the data is verified as authentic, it is then posted to the Ethereum and EOS blockchains.
And now, looking at the EOS Mainnet and Ethereum blockchains from which the data is directly read, Associated Press has called 44 out of 52 states. This includes 50 states, the District of Columbia, as well as the US in total.
“23 states called for [Donald] Trump, 21 states called for [Joe] Biden,” said the AP Election Mission Control page (11:03 UTC).
According to the results, the AP said Trump won swing states like Ohio, Iowa, and Florida, while Biden won Maine, Arizona, Vermont, etc.
The Associated Press has called @JoeBiden the winner of two swing states, Maine and Arizona, on the blockchain using the Everipedia OraQle powered by #Chainlink. https://t.co/kwU7wZTUu6 pic.twitter.com/F2EKAXoU5L
— Everipedia (@Everipedia) November 4, 2020
However, as states have a different number of electoral votes, Biden secured 238 votes out of necessary 270, while Trump has 213, according to Bloomberg data. While Reuters and some other sources claim that Biden has 224 votes, Trump – 213.
The AP partnered with blockchain knowledge company Everipedia in mid-October. Per this partnership, the news agency distributes race calls to Everipedia, which then publishes them on the blockchain through an oracle – Everipedia OraQle – powered by Chainlink (LINK) infrastructure.
The AP said it collects and verifies returns in every single place across the US, and that this November it would declare winners in 7,000 contests. It now also signs the data cryptographically and publishes its cryptographic key through Everipedia’s official channels.
“Beyond just posting the results, though, the AP is using the blockchains behind the scenes in its own application programming interface (API), meaning anyone tapping into the official AP results can verify the accuracy using the blockchain data,” Forbes reported. But more than that, the report added that “using the unalterable blockchain to time-stamp the results could pave the way for how future elections are handled.”
Daniel Kochis, head of business development at Chainlink, is quoted in the article as saying that making blockchain more accessible is “key to realizing its full potential,” and that “publishing the AP’s electoral race calls onto the blockchain for the first time is a big milestone in that journey.”
As the AP explains, an API enables various types of users, such as news site, research organizations, and others, to access the data via their mobile applications. During the election, the app regularly polls the API for various results, such as reference information about each race and each candidate, vote counts, delegate count, and race calls.
Meanwhile, more blockchain-based services focused on transparent elections are being built and tested. For example, voting service that uses blockchain infrastructure, Voatz, went through a series of public trials earlier this year when it was used for smaller, more local elections, and it faced its fair share of criticism.
___
Learn more:
Devs Criticize Russian Blockchain Elections, Gov’t Claims ‘No Hitches’
Kaspersky Launches Blockchain-powered Voting Platform