{"id":70626,"date":"2025-04-17T18:53:02","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T22:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/?p=70626"},"modified":"2025-04-18T11:52:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T15:52:22","slug":"new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/","title":{"rendered":"Blockchain for election integrity bill resurfaces in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For the fifth straight legislative term in New York, state assembly member Clyde Vanel has introduced a bill<\/a> that would order the state to study whether using distributed ledger technology, better known as blockchain, could \u201cprotect\u201d voter records and election results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Identical bills introduced in sessions dating back to 2017 haven\u2019t found traction. Though the legislation only calls for the study of the technology\u2019s potential use, by first enlisting experts in blockchain technology, voter fraud, cybersecurity, voter records and election results, reception of such technologies in 2025 remains tepid at best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director with the nonprofit Verified Voting, said he was unsure what problem related to elections that blockchain, a technology made famous for underpinning cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, could solve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor the vast majority of us, who do not live in the world of bitcoin and really don\u2019t want to, it\u2019s really hard for me to imagine a situation in which I could feel better about election results knowing that they\u2019re on a distributed ledger somewhere,\u201d Lindeman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vanel, an intellectual property attorney and Democrat who was not immediately available for an interview, in 2019 said<\/a> he believed that governments must not neglect cryptocurrencies or blockchain technology. He pointed to a 2016 New York City Board of Elections scandal in which 117,000 Brooklyn voters were improperly purged from voter rolls, an incident he said could have been sidestepped if the board had been using an immutable public ledger like that offered by blockchain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Voters, especially Trump supporters, have become more wary of election results in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pew Research Center last year surveyed<\/a> Donald Trump supporters and Kamala Harris supporters to find stark differences in their beliefs about how elections are conducted. Trump supporters were far less likely to believe that people unqualified to vote would be prevented from voting or to report feeling confident that after an election was over that it would be clear which candidate had won.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindeman said there have long been worries from Republicans and Democrats about the integrity of election results, recalling a controversy in 2004 when some John Kerry supporters claimed that some votes had been clawed back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted that the best source of election results are county or state websites, but that those numbers are only reports of what ballot counts show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGround truth lives first of all with the voted paper ballots and then with the documents that election officials have produced in the course of certifying the results,\u201d Lindeman said. \u201cThe whole process of attesting to a sacred set of election results kind of seems off point to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pursuit of an immutable, timestamped record of every vote remains tantalizing for many, and at least a dozen nations around the globe, from Brazil to Estonia, have experimented with using blockchain for events as large as national elections to procedural ones like voting internally on policy changes. A mobile voting app backed by blockchain used in the United States to collect live ballots from overseas voters in some states was eventually found in 2020<\/a> to contain severe security vulnerabilities before discussions of the app’s wider use fizzled out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One 2020 research paper<\/a> published in Oxford University\u2019s Journal of Cybersecurity asserted that internet- and blockchain-based voting \u201cwould greatly increase the risk of undetectable, nation-scale election failures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Josh Greenbaum, chief technology officer of the nonprofit U.S. Vote Foundation, wrote in a blog post<\/a> that blockchain technology is \u201cexceedingly risky and vulnerable to a host of dangerous cybersecurity attacks,\u201d but also a distraction from more constructive conversations about how to improve security under the current paradigm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Screven County, Georgia, last November became the first county<\/a> in the United States to use the Bitcoin platform\u2019s blockchain to record election results. The county government used technology from the Georgia startup Simple Proof<\/a>, which has also supported elections in Guatemala<\/a> and a Williamson County, Tennessee, Republican Party convention<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur solution is very useful for anchoring data onto a specific point in time using the Bitcoin blockchain, but people don\u2019t vote on the blockchain using Simple Proof,\u201d company cofounder Rafael Cordon said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Screven, a county in southeastern Georgia with about 14,000 residents, collected ballots normally last November, Cordon said, before the county\u2019s election administrator used a USB drive to move a digital report generated by voting machines onto a computer that is not connected to the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis computer tabulates the results and then the election supervisor timestamps that final report using Simple Proof,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then they log into the secretary of state election night reporting system and upload the results. So what they did is protect that information at that specific point in time so in the future or further downstream in the data aggregation process, they can prove that their information was not changed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cordon said there\u2019s an appetite among some state and county governments, including in Wyoming, to add such layers of proof to their election results. But he said his business is now shifting its focus to public records and the federal government, particularly after Trump has advertised an interest in blockchain and a \u201cdigital asset strategy\u201d<\/a> that includes stockpiling bitcoin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bill recently introduced in the New York legislature revives a discussion about how digital ledgers might improve election integrity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":70627,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable_grayscale_images":true,"grayscale_contrast":0,"sponsored_content":false,"display_author_bio":true,"story_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[20646],"tags":[52,108,125,128,894,25131,25132,25557,25558,25559],"people":[],"special-report":[],"authors":[4696],"class_list":["post-70626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-blockchain","tag-new-york","tag-election-security","tag-elections","tag-trump","tag-technology-news","tag-government-news","tag-crypto-news","tag-confidence-in-elections","tag-clyde-vanel","author-colin-wood"],"yoast_head":"\nBlockchain for election integrity bill resurfaces in New York | StateScoop<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A bill recently introduced in the New York legislature revives a discussion about how digital ledgers might improve election integrity.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Blockchain for election integrity bill resurfaces in New York | StateScoop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A bill recently introduced in the New York legislature revives a discussion about how digital ledgers might improve election integrity.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"StateScoop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/StateScoop\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-04-17T22:53:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-04-18T15:52:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/2025-04-17.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"857\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Colin Wood\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@State_Scoop\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@State_Scoop\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/\",\"name\":\"Blockchain for election integrity bill resurfaces in New York | StateScoop\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/2025-04-17.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-04-17T22:53:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-04-18T15:52:22+00:00\",\"description\":\"A bill recently introduced in the New York legislature revives a discussion about how digital ledgers might improve election integrity.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/2025-04-17.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/2025-04-17.jpg\",\"width\":1300,\"height\":857,\"caption\":\"(Scoop News Group)\"},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/\",\"name\":\"StateScoop\",\"description\":\"Latest news and events in state and local government technology\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"StateScoop\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/01\/StateScoop-Black.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/01\/StateScoop-Black.png\",\"width\":1470,\"height\":186,\"caption\":\"StateScoop\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/StateScoop\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/State_Scoop\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/statescoop\/\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@StateScoop\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Blockchain for election integrity bill resurfaces in New York | StateScoop","description":"A bill recently introduced in the New York legislature revives a discussion about how digital ledgers might improve election integrity.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Blockchain for election integrity bill resurfaces in New York | StateScoop","og_description":"A bill recently introduced in the New York legislature revives a discussion about how digital ledgers might improve election integrity.","og_url":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/","og_site_name":"StateScoop","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/StateScoop\/","article_published_time":"2025-04-17T22:53:02+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-04-18T15:52:22+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1300,"height":857,"url":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/2025-04-17.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Colin Wood","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@State_Scoop","twitter_site":"@State_Scoop","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/","url":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/","name":"Blockchain for election integrity bill resurfaces in New York | StateScoop","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/2025-04-17.jpg","datePublished":"2025-04-17T22:53:02+00:00","dateModified":"2025-04-18T15:52:22+00:00","description":"A bill recently introduced in the New York legislature revives a discussion about how digital ledgers might improve election integrity.","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/2025-04-17.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/2025-04-17.jpg","width":1300,"height":857,"caption":"(Scoop News Group)"},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/","name":"StateScoop","description":"Latest news and events in state and local government technology","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/#organization","name":"StateScoop","url":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/01\/StateScoop-Black.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/01\/StateScoop-Black.png","width":1470,"height":186,"caption":"StateScoop"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/StateScoop\/","https:\/\/x.com\/State_Scoop","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/statescoop\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@StateScoop"]}]}},"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Blockchain for election integrity bill resurfaces in New York","url":"http:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/2025-04-17.jpg?w=150&h=150&crop=1","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/2025-04-17.jpg"},"articleSection":"Cybersecurity","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Colin Wood","url":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/author\/colin-wood\/"}],"creator":["Colin Wood"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"StateScoop","logo":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/01\/cropped-ss_favicon.png"},"keywords":["blockchain","clyde vanel","confidence in elections","crypto news","election security","elections","government news","new york","technology news","trump"],"dateCreated":"2025-04-17T22:53:02Z","datePublished":"2025-04-17T22:53:02Z","dateModified":"2025-04-18T15:52:22Z"},"rendered":"<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"wp-parsely-metadata\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"headline\":\"Blockchain for election integrity bill resurfaces in New York\",\"url\":\"http:\\\/\\\/statescoop.com\\\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\\\/\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/statescoop.com\\\/new-york-blockchain-election-results-voting\\\/\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/statescoop.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/6\\\/2025\\\/04\\\/2025-04-17.jpg?w=150&h=150&crop=1\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/statescoop.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/6\\\/2025\\\/04\\\/2025-04-17.jpg\"},\"articleSection\":\"Cybersecurity\",\"author\":[{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Colin Wood\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/statescoop.com\\\/author\\\/colin-wood\\\/\"}],\"creator\":[\"Colin Wood\"],\"publisher\":{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"name\":\"StateScoop\",\"logo\":\"https:\\\/\\\/statescoop.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/6\\\/2023\\\/01\\\/cropped-ss_favicon.png\"},\"keywords\":[\"blockchain\",\"clyde vanel\",\"confidence in elections\",\"crypto news\",\"election security\",\"elections\",\"government news\",\"new york\",\"technology news\",\"trump\"],\"dateCreated\":\"2025-04-17T22:53:02Z\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-04-17T22:53:02Z\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-04-18T15:52:22Z\"}<\/script>","tracker_url":"https:\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/statescoop.com\/p.js"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/2025-04-17.jpg","distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"StateScoop","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/statescoop.com","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/205"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70626"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70634,"href":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70626\/revisions\/70634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70626"},{"taxonomy":"people","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people?post=70626"},{"taxonomy":"special-report","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/special-report?post=70626"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/authors?post=70626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}