On Tuesday, March 4, 2025, the Williamson Country Republican Party held its convention at the Franklin Marriott, located in the heart of Williamson County, Tennessee.

At the event, “bona fide” Republicans (those who voted in the last three out of four Republican primaries) voted for the future of their party’s local leadership, with the two sides in the contest — Elevate and the Williamson County Republicans — each offering a slate of eight candidates.

The final results of the vote were committed in (added to) Bitcoin block 886,370 using Simple Proof’s Immutable Proof service, an automated service that employs the OpenTimestamps protocol to help protect public records.

Why Simple Proof?

Simple Proof preserves the integrity of documents by committing digital versions of said documents in the arbitrary data field (the OP_RETURN function) of a bitcoin transaction. In doing so, the documents are irrevocably committed to a block on the Bitcoin blockchain, which is immutable.

This technology has proven to be excellent for preserving election records, as it helps to prevent tampering with election results once a vote count is finalized.

Simple Proof put itself on the map when it helped secure the vote tallies for 2023’s Presidential election in Guatemala, the story of which is outlined in the short documentary “Immutable Democracy.”

The company also helped to preserve the integrity of election results in Screven County, Georgia this past November.

It was actually this story from Screven County that caught the attention of Steve Giraud, a Republican voter based in Williamson County who wanted to see integrity of the vote tally for the Williamson County Republican leadership election upheld.

So, he and a friend with whom he hosts Bitcoin meetups, Dave Birnbaum (also a contributor to Bitcoin Magazine), reached out to the Simple Proof to employ its services.

“Steve, the person who contacted Simple Proof, described himself as a ‘concerned citizen,’” Simple Proof founder and CEO Rafael (Rafa) Cordon told Bitcoin Magazine.

Cordon went on to explain that Simple Proof is politically impartial and that it does no more than provide a technological service.

“We’re not working directly for any political organization or electoral authority, just a person who wants to protect voting documents,” said Cordon.

Carlos Toriello, Election Lead at Simple Proof, reiterated Cordon’s point that Simple Proof doesn’t work on behalf of political groups and only works to preserve the integrity of key election documents.

“They can use our service to know that the information that they rely upon has been preserved,” Toriello told Bitcoin Magazine.

Pre-Convention Tension

When I spoke with Giraud the day before the vote, he seemed visibly nervous about potential interference during the night of the vote and/or legal action being taken to challenge the legitimacy of the election results after the fact.

Giraud, who is affiliated with the Williamson County Citizens, a group of “grassroots conservatives” that believes in small government, low taxes and reduced regulation, explained that the Republican sect to which he belongs has been deeply at odds with the Williamson County Conservatives, who he described as less ideologically-driven “establishment Republicans.”

At the convention, bona fide Republicans would vote for a total of eight party leaders, selected from the eight put on the ballot by Elevate, the Republican group with which Giraud is affiliated, and eight put on the ballot by the Williamson County Conservatives.

In the weeks leading up to the convention, reports stated that the Williamson County Republicans ran a misinformation campaign in which they claimed that Elevate was trying to suppress the vote because the Williamson County Republican Party (WCRP), made up of a majority of representatives from Elevate, mandated in-person voting at the convention, despite the fact that this mandate comes from Tennessee’s Republican party bylaws.

According to Giraud, the Williamson County Conservatives also claimed that the WCRP changed the venue last minute as a means to reduce voter turnout from supporters of Williamson County Conservatives.

Giraud argued that this wasn’t the case, though.

“Given the turnout we were expecting, we were getting very close to exceeding the maximum capacity or occupancy rate for the original venue, the Franklin Factory Liberty Hall,” he explained.

“So, someone at the Contest and Credentialing Committee (CCC) (which is a separate entity from the WCRP) said he had to change venue, which could disadvantage some voters. Now, the WCRP will have volunteers at the Factory with signs that say ‘Venue changed, go to the Marriott,’” he added.

“But we’re very concerned that if the opposition loses, they will threaten lawsuits because of what the CCC did.”

What is more, the Williamson County Conservatives bombarded Williamson county residents with mailers, texts and robo-calls, partially funded by former Democrats.

Giraud said that the Williamson County Conservatives “carpet bombed 16,000 bona fide Republicans in Williamson County with mailers — every 5,000 of which went out costing about $4,000.”

A report claimed that the Williamson County Conservatives spent $50,000 on this campaign and that the messaging was “emotionally-charged and aggressive,” leading to Williamson County Conservatives and Elevate both levying and responding to accusations made by the opposing group.

The Vote Counting Process

Simple Proof doesn’t guarantee the validity of the vote tallies it helps to preserve with the Bitcoin blockchain, so it’s up to the local election board to ensure the legitimacy of the voting process.

Giraud explained that only bona fide voters would be allowed into the voting area the night of the convention. He added that the voting area would be “secured by deputy sheriffs” and that all voters are given a wristband that they have to remove once they vote so that they cannot vote twice.

All voting is done on what Giraud called “bubble cards,” on which voters use a Sharpie pen to fill in their choice eight candidates from the 16 on the ballot (the Elevate candidates on one side of the ballot and the Williamson Country Conservatives candidates on the other).

Four volunteer observers — two from Elevate and two from the Williamson County Conservatives — monitor the vote.

During the vote, Giraud would act as a “Judge for Spoiled Ballots,” allowing him to take note of any ballots on which someone wrote outside of the bubbles or other irregularities that could nullify a vote.

Ballots are fed through a machine (a part of the voting process that Giraud noted that he doesn’t necessarily like — “I’m skeptical of anything that involves a machine when it comes to a ballot marking device,” he said.)

The machines then produce the final vote tally for the night, though, the results could be hand counted at the request of either Elevate or the Williamson County Conservatives.

The Voting Results

The Elevate candidates won all eight party leadership seats.

The victory did not go uncontested, though.

After the machines produced the results, the Williamson Country Conservatives requested a manual recount, which the Tennessee State Election Commission conducted, according to Giraud. The recount resulted in Elevate winning by a very slightly wider margin than was initially reported. (Simple Proof timestamped both the initial results and the results from the manual recount, linked in the first section of this piece, to the Bitcoin blockchain.)

“With the manual hand recount, we gained one vote,” said Giraud.

Giraud also reported that his anxieties around potential voting interference the night of the convention were allayed, as the process went smoothly, aside from a minor, unexpected occurrence.

“There were so many elderly people here that they opened the doors up for early voting,” he said.

By the end of the night, Giraud wasn’t just relieved, though, he was optimistic about what had transpired that evening and also hopeful that Simple Proof’s technology will be employed on a larger scale.

“I just introduced what I did to the soon-to-be-former Chair of the Williamson County Republican Committee, who is stepping down as of tonight,” said Giraud.

“He was very excited that we were doing this. I hope that he will help us take this further, not just in the county, but in outlying counties as well as up to the state at some point. That’s my goal for the state of Tennessee: increase transparency,” he added.

“I would hope even the other side would approach Carlos (Toriello) and Rafa (Cordon) and want to use this for documentation as well as future elections to hold us accountable and to force truth and accountability. That’s my goal as a concerned citizen.”