West Virginia: Hackers try to access West Virginia’s mobile voting app | GCN
Someone tried to hack into West Virginia’s blockchain-enabled mobile voting system during the 2018 election cycle. The attack happened during the pilot rollout of West Virginia’s mobile voting pilot that uses a smartphone application developed by Boston-based Voatz to enable eligible overseas voters to receive and return their ballot securely using a mobile device. The app lets military and overseas voters who qualify under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Act verify their identities by providing biometric proof in the form of a photo of their driver’s license, state ID or passport that is matched to a selfie. Once voters’ identities are confirmed, they receive a mobile ballot based on the one that they would receive in their local precinct. A confirmation message is sent to the voter’s smartphone when the vote is uploaded to the blockchain’s series of secure, redundant, geographically dispersed servers , which ensures the votes cannot be tampered with once they’ve been recorded.