West Virginia dumps controversial voting app before primary

West Virginia won't use a controversial voting app during its primary on May 12.

The state originally planned to allow voters with disabilities to use Voatz, a "blockchain-based" voting app. Researchers showed that the app was vulnerable to malicious actors, who could alter a user's vote.

But on Friday, the state announced that voters with disabilities and overseas voters will use a special ballot created by Democracy Live. That option will give those voters the choice of either submitting their ballot online or printing it, filling it out by hand, and mailing it in.

It's definitely an about-face for West Virginia, which made a big to-do back in 2018 when it first signed a contract to use Voatz in that year's midterm elections. Both West Virginia and the city of Denver, which used Voatz in its 2019 mayoral election, reported the app a success.

But that was before Feb. 3, 2020, when an app used by the Iowa Democratic Party suffered a meltdown during the state's caucus.

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

SEE ALSO: The internet and elections don't mix. So why do we keep trying?

The Iowa mess was so bad that Nevada, which planned to use the same app, scrapped that idea and basically used a glorified Google spreadsheet instead.

Then, just 10 days later, researchers at MIT published a report that directly targeted Voatz, finding a slew of vulnerabilities, including:

• Enabling a bad actor to "alter, stop, or expose a user's vote."

• Allowing a "sidechannel attack in which a completely passive network adversary can potentially recover a user's secret ballot."

• Never requiring a user to re-enter their PIN, meaning anyone with access to the voter's phone could cast a vote as long as the PIN had been entered once.

Voatz, in turn, called the report "flawed" and insisted "all nine of our governmental pilot elections conducted to date, involving less than 600 voters, have been conducted safely and securely with no reported issues."

In a statement to Mashable, a Voatz spokesperson said:

We salute the state of West Virginia for continuing to pave the path toward broader access for voters who face challenges at the polls. Due to the recent heightened media attention surrounding mobile voting and Voatz, we respectfully acknowledge the needs of the state to work with a different platform for this primary election.  

We are deeply grateful to our partners within the office of the Secretary of State of West Virginia and across the counties, who, in 2018, pioneered the first mobile votes in U.S. federal election history with Voatz to allow voting access for overseas citizens, military and their dependents. These pilots stand as markers of success for the continuation and furthering of mobile voting, and have resulted in timely legislation to ensure statewide voting access for people with physical disabilities. SB 94, signed by Governor Jim Justice earlier in February, received sweeping bipartisan support and passed unanimously in both houses of the state legislature. We are proud to have been part of that journey, continue to applaud the courage and moral fortitude of West Virginia for standing up for voting access, and look forward to continuing our work with, and support for, this critical initiative.

For now, the hopes of an app-based voting future remain at arm's length.

UPDATE: March 5, 2020, 10:47 a.m. EST Updated to include Voatz statement