Russia’s
blockchain-based voting system for the constitutional amendments has
reportedly been attacked via an election observer’s node. 

As reported by state-owned news agency TASS,
the attack occurred on June 27 around 8 PM CET. A government of Moscow
representative told TASS that the attack did not cause a system
malfunction, meaning that all e-votes will be successfully recorded on
the blockchain.

According to the official, cybersecurity experts
were working to restore access to the attacked node. It is not clear if
it’s been repaired at this point. 

E-voting, held from June 25 to
June 30 for residents of Moscow and Nizhniy Novgorod, is based on the
Exonum blockchain platform developed by Bitfury. Cointelegraph reached
out to Bitfury for additional comments regarding the attack, but did not
hear back as of press time.

Initiated earlier this year, the
constitutional amendments will theoretically allow Vladimir Putin to
serve two more six-year terms if approved, meaning that he may remain
president until 2036.


The system has experienced hiccups before


According to previous reports, the website for e-voting was inaccessible during the first few hours after going live. 

Moreover, the blockchain-based online voting has produced
some abnormal results in certain regions. For instance, nearly 7,300
people assigned to a polling station in Troitsky Administrative Okrug
were registered to vote online, despite the station only having a total
of 2,358 residents eligible to vote. The local electoral commission
claimed that this was a "technical malfunction." 

Further, some
people have reported successfully managing to vote multiple times due to
the system’s apparently poor compatibility with the vote’s offline
part. 

Local journalist Pavel Lobkov posted a video describing how he initially voted offline at his polling station, and then voted online an hour later. 

Similarly, Yael Iliinsky, a Russian national based in Israel, reportedly managed
to vote three tunes: online via the website, at the Russian embassy in
Tel-Aviv, and at the Russian consulate in Haifa. She also claimed that
her daughter, who is still a minor, also voted in Haifa because her
documents weren’t checked.