The Bitcoin Blockchain is used to secure election results in a Georgia county

Screven County, Georgia made history on November 5, 2024 when it became the first county in the United States to use the Bitcoin blockchain to protect its election results.

The Screven County Board of Elections worked with Simple guidean American company Protects digital records using the Bitcoin blockchainTo ensure that the election results cannot be changed.

Screven County Supervisor of Elections Stacy Scott Mincey hired Simple Proof to make sure the handling of votes in her county wasn’t questioned the way it was Another Georgia county During the 2020 elections.

“One of my goals was to do everything I could to make sure people in the county felt safe, and that their votes mattered, especially with growing concerns about security and voter fraud,” Mincey told me in an interview. “Using Simple Proof was just an additional step we took to ensure that our results could not be manipulated in any way.”

What a simple guide does

Simple Proof gained notoriety when its immutable proof service was used to protect the results of the recent presidential election in Guatemala, which was detailed in the documentary Unchangeable democracy.

Simple Proof uses an open source protocol called OpenTimestampsdeveloped by Peter Todd, former Bitcoin Core developer.

The protocol enables encryption Timestampwhich uses hash functions to maintain information in Bitcoin’s immutable ledger. The information is stored in the OP_RETURN function of the Bitcoin transaction. This is where the party sending the transaction can include random information, which is similar to the “memo” space on a physical check.

Anyone can then verify this immutable proof on the Simple Proof platform or independently in a trustless manner via the Bitcoin blockchain. In simpler terms, Simple Proof enables the public to verify election results and other official documents once they are secured by the Bitcoin blockchain.

Simple Guide to Scriven County

In the case of the Scriven County election, the information stored on the blockchain were election summary reports, which contain vote counts, and a statement of votes cast, which provides a county-level overview of election results and other election details.

Carlos Torello, elections leader for Simple Proof, said his organization has worked to make it as easy as possible for Mincey to protect these documents.

“We wanted to make sure this was painless for Stacey,” Torello told me in an interview.

He continued, saying that all Mincey had to do was email the documents to Simple Proof’s immutable proof service, which automatically timestamps the documents on the blockchain.

The first instance of this timestamp occurred at 7:54 PM EST on November 5, 2024 and can be viewed via Simple proof verification page.

“Block 869,047 is the first block in the Bitcoin chain to contain evidence of the US election,” Torello said.

Screven County Voting System

While Simple Proof protects voting records, it does not guarantee the legitimacy of votes. In the United States, this responsibility falls to the local elections board.

“In Georgia, the secretary of state is doing a great job making sure the election is secure,” Mincey said.

“We use machines, but we also have paper ballots. If there’s a problem, we can go back and count the ballots by hand,” she added.

Mincey went on to state that the machines count the ballots and issue the above-mentioned reports. However, she and her team have a way of verifying at least most of the reports.

“Our county does an audit where we sort a portion of the ballots by hand to make sure they match what we got from the machine,” Mincey said. “I think this is a great extra security step that we have to make sure the election is valid.”

How Mincey found a simple clue

Not only does Minsi have an in-depth knowledge of how voting works in her state, she’s also knowledgeable about Bitcoin. In fact, it was because of Bitcoin that she met Torello.

Members of the Minsi Meeting Group attended Bitcoin 2024 Last July (Mincy was unable to attend the event). Members of the group met Toriello and Simple Proof’s booth at the conference. Toriello and the Simple Proof team were there to raise awareness about how to protect public records in an immutable way using Bitcoin.

“Our call to action was Uncle Honey Badger wants you to protect the election with Bitcoin,” Torello said with a laugh.

(The honey badger, known for its toughness and resilience, is sometimes considered the mascot of Bitcoin.)

A member of the group spoke with Torello at the event and stayed in touch with him afterward. In September, the Minsi Meetup invited Torello to speak virtually at one of their meetings.

“He spoke at the meeting, and then I started talking to him because I was very interested in how we could ensure that our results were verified,” Mincey said. “I was amazed by the way they used Simple Proof in Guatemala.”

In late October, Mincey proposed using Simple Proof at a board meeting, and the board voted in favor. Minsi called Torello, and the rest is now history.

Further implementation of a simple proof

Toriello is encouraged after the successful effort to boycott Simple Proof and Screven and now wants to see Georgia implement Simple Proof services statewide in its upcoming elections.

“We’ve proven we can do this in a week or so in a county,” Torello said. “Why don’t we do this in every county in the state of Georgia from now on?”

Mincey would also like to see every county in Georgia use Simple Proof. She really wanted this to be the case last election, but time was not on her side.

“I was hoping to be able to introduce it to our people at the state level so that it would be more widely used,” she said. “But this time, there was no time to get it out at the state level.”

Toriello also has his sights beyond Georgia.

“We’ve already had successes in a bunch of different places across the country,” said Torello, who believes more counties and states will see the value in what Simple Proof offers after this success story in Screven County.

He added: “I want this to spread like wildfire as the authorities see that it is easy to implement and they can afford it.”

“We are very optimistic.”