Maple Ridge Township: Increasing Civic Participation with Mobile Blockchain Voting

Maple Ridge Township, a small municipality of approximately 15,000 residents, piloted a mobile-first blockchain voting solution to boost turnout for local referenda, online consultations, and council member elections. After a 12-week pilot and staged rollout, participation in citizen-led referenda rose from 14% to 52%, average decision cycles shortened by 45%, and residents reported higher confidence in electoral transparency. The pilot demonstrated that a permissioned, mobile-first voting system can make local governance more inclusive, auditable, and accessible.

The problem

Maple Ridge faced several civic engagement and governance pain points:

Persistently low turnout: Local referenda and advisory polls routinely attracted fewer than 20% of eligible voters, limiting representativeness.
Access barriers: Many residents work long hours, have caregiving responsibilities, or travel for seasonal work, making in-person voting inconvenient.
Transparency concerns: Some residents doubted the integrity of local ballots and wanted verifiable results without compromising voter privacy.
Administrative burden: Township staff spent considerable time managing paper ballots, mail-in processes, and manual tally reconciliation.

Town leadership wanted a secure, privacy-respecting solution to increase participation, shorten decision timelines, and reduce administrative overhead.

Objectives

Raise participation in local referenda and advisory polls to at least 50% within two months of rollout.

Preserve ballot anonymity while providing a verifiable, tamper-evident audit trail for officials.

Reduce administrative time spent on vote management by 50%.

Provide an easy-to-use mobile voting experience plus physical kiosks for residents without smartphones.

Solution overview

Maple Ridge implemented a permissioned blockchain voting platform in partnership with UrVote, customized for local government workflows.

Core components:

Permissioned private ledger: The township and UrVote operated nodes in a closed network; hashes of votes were recorded on-chain without storing personal data.
Mobile-first credentialing: Residents requested one-time voting credentials via secure municipal portals or received mailed codes for those without internet access.
Kiosk network: Kiosks were placed at the town hall, library, and community center for in-person access and assisted voting.
Clear communications plan: Outreach included multilingual leaflets, short explainer videos, and community Q&A sessions about privacy and auditability.
Admin audit tools: Read-only dashboards allowed election staff to verify tallies without seeing voter identities.

Deployment consisted of a privacy/security audit, a two-week pilot for a school-budget advisory vote, and a phased township-wide rollout.

Implementation timeline

Week 0–2: Requirements and privacy/security review; stakeholder outreach.
Week 3–4: Pilot setup, kiosk deployment, and staff training.
Week 5–8: Pilot votes and monitoring (school budget advisory + two micro-polls).
Week 9–12: Township-wide rollout for a local referendum and post-implementation review.

Results (pilot → rollout)

Participation: increased from 14% → 52% on the first township-wide referendum.
Decision cycle time: reduced by 45% (from an average of 18 days → 9.9 days).
Admin time saved: staff hours for vote management dropped ~58% (automation of credentialing and tallying).
Resident confidence: survey responses reporting “confident in the integrity of results” rose from 31% → 71%.
Compliance & auditability: comprehensive, exportable audit reports were produced; no integrity anomalies were detected.

Representative resident & official quotes

“I voted from my evening shift on my phone, so easy. It felt like my voice actually mattered.”

“We needed a solution that balanced accessibility with robust audit controls. This system delivered both.”

Lessons learned & best practices

Multichannel access is essential: mobile + kiosks covered diverse resident needs and lifted participation most effectively.
Transparent education builds trust: plain-language explainers and public demonstrations reduced concerns about anonymity.
Short, frequent votes work well: micro-polls keep engagement active between big referenda.
Community ambassadors help: local leaders and volunteers eased adoption among less tech-savvy residents.

Risks & mitigations

Risk: Misunderstanding that blockchain implies public exposure.
Mitigation: Proactive messaging on private, permissioned infrastructure and the separate credentialing model.
Risk: Digital divide for older or low-income residents.
Mitigation: Kiosk network, mailed one-time codes, and assisted voting sessions.

Legal / disclosure

This case study is a fictionalized composite created for demonstration purposes. Data points and quotes are representative and should not be attributed to a real municipality without verification.