If it's the case that Sierra Leone did not use blockchain for any part of its election, I think TechCrunch needs to own up to its reporting, which seems very thinly sourced:
In fact, it seems completely sourced to "Leonardo Gammar of Agora", "Agora" being a company that is trying to sell its "blockchain-based digital voting solution" [0] and thus has every incentive to hype the usage of their product. The TC reporter apparently made no attempt to contact anyone who actually works in Sierra Leone's government/elections, or anyone who actually lives there.
It is possible that Agora was accredited as an independent observer of results. But it's problematic that they use their Sierra Leone results page to advertise their services, which don't seem to have been used as described:
> Agora is a Swiss foundation providing decentralized digital voting systems based on the blockchain technology. Agora’s solution will enable secure and remote voting from digital devices, as well as allow each voter to verify his or her untampered vote in the final count.
When you go to Agora's "results" page, all you get is an aggregated tally of votes. I don't see a ledger of any kind:
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/14/sierra-leone-just-ran-the-...
In fact, it seems completely sourced to "Leonardo Gammar of Agora", "Agora" being a company that is trying to sell its "blockchain-based digital voting solution" [0] and thus has every incentive to hype the usage of their product. The TC reporter apparently made no attempt to contact anyone who actually works in Sierra Leone's government/elections, or anyone who actually lives there.
[0] https://agora.vote/#about
edit: looks like the reporter has just decided to reach out to authorities:
https://twitter.com/johnbiggs/status/975841632661786624
https://twitter.com/johnbiggs/status/975814093994151938
Quartz also wrote about Sierra Leone's alleged use of blockchain, and like TC, solely sources it to Agora: https://qz.com/1227050/sierra-leone-elections-powered-by-blo...
It does link to this page though, from Agora:
https://agora.vote/sierraleone2018/
It is possible that Agora was accredited as an independent observer of results. But it's problematic that they use their Sierra Leone results page to advertise their services, which don't seem to have been used as described:
> Agora is a Swiss foundation providing decentralized digital voting systems based on the blockchain technology. Agora’s solution will enable secure and remote voting from digital devices, as well as allow each voter to verify his or her untampered vote in the final count.
When you go to Agora's "results" page, all you get is an aggregated tally of votes. I don't see a ledger of any kind:
https://agora.vote/sierraleone2018/results