South Korea is reportedly in the process of developing a blockchain-based online voting system, with trials set to begin as early as next month.

The East Asian country’s Ministry of Science and ICT and National Election Commission (NEC) will employ blockchain technology in order to authenticate votes and save results with more transparency and security, reports ZDNet. Trials of the voting system are set to begin in December within the private sector.

The NEC first ran an online voting system, dubbed ‘K-voting’, in 2013. This system has been used by 5.64m people in South Korea but there is little trust in the system due to concerns around hacking and fraud.

The blockchain voting system will enable voting to be carried out via mobile or personal computers. All data will be saved on a distributed network and all voters will be able to view results as they progress, in theory, eliminating hacking and fraud.

Blockchain voting will first be put to use in surveys conducted by Seoul National University’s Blockchain Society and Korea Internet & Security Agency next month. Depending on the results, the NEC will decide whether to put the system into use for online voting and, should the system be implemented, eventually add artificial intelligence, big data, and internet of things technology to further upgrade voting systems.