Days before a U.S. presidential election marred by court fights over vote counting and partisan allegations of rampant mail-in ballot fraud, Overstock.com is once again touting what it calls a solution: blockchain voting.
âIf [voting] doesnât work as well as it should, next week think about how Voatz could have solved that,â Overstock chief Jonathan Johnson told investors during OSTKâs Oct. 29 earnings call.
Johnson, who is also president of Overstockâs blockchain investments subsidiary Medici Ventures, was referring to the Medici-backed mobile voting app Voatz, which claims to use blockchain technology to secure usersâ vote.
Read more: Downvoted: Security Researchers Slam Voatz Over Stance on White-Hat Hackers
Elections officials in 29 of Americaâs 3,141 counties have allowed certain absentee voters to cast ballots via Voatz in past elections, Johnson said. He noted that one county in Utah is using Voatz in next weekâs contest. More partners are on the way, he said.
Johnsonâs comments suggest that Medici sees an even wider opening for its mobile voting company in the wake of next weekâs election. Voting experts are anticipating a messy and lengthy vote count that could cloud the rhetorically charged presidential race with yet more uncertainty.
Whether Voatz works as well as it should is similarly uncertain.
MIT security researchers blasted the appâs cybersecurity safeguards in a February 2020 paper that the company called unfair and inaccurate. Voatz said at the time it had addressed vulnerabilities identified in a separate U.S. Department of Homeland Security cyber audit.
See also: US Postal Service Envisions Blockchain-Backed Mail-In Voting
There have been other hiccups, too. Weeks prior to MITâs report, a Voatz service outage threatened to derail Tufts Universityâs student senate races. Elections officials at the school fear the shutdown may have depressed turnout. Voatz called that outage âprecautionary.â