The SohoStar Queb® supports Digital Voting – The Red Pill® Security Suite

There have been a number of proposals about cleaning up elections, reducing fraud, and making the process tamper-proof. During the 2020 election the following algorithm was published, which has been shared on X-Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. I designed this version of the algorithm.

The intent of DigitalVote is to establish non-repudiated voter identification using digital signatures and encryption to ensure secure and verifiable online voting while enabling public scrutiny and access to votes and still providing voter privacy.

When DigitalVote is implemented, Voters can opt in to vote online or in person by registering a Self-Sovereign ID (SSID), one that the voter creates and not issued by the state or an agency.

The SSID uses a public key, a private key, and a passphrase. The passphrase is the equivalence of a signature, which must be exact and enables non-repudiation.

The Constitution establishes citizenship. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which declared that all persons born or naturalized in the United States were citizens of the United States and the state in which they lived, thereby affirming a rule of citizenship by birth that did not depend on race. The Constitution specifies a requirement for some offices which require verification of being natural born, which requires a qualifying proof of US birth and whose authority has been established to the States. THEREFORE, It is the requirement of each state to maintain a record of state citizenship documented by birth records. As state legislatures establish the dates and methods of elections, including voter eligibility, it should behoove each State Secretary’s office to maintain digital identification of its citizens.

DigitalVoters can vote from home by webpage, cellphone, email, and in person at libraries, schools, and election locations. The DigitalVote method can be managed on laptops taken into hospitals, senior facilities, or other places where mobility is a problem. This DigitalVote method enables military or others to vote from anywhere on the earth or in space, as long as they have proven their eligibility and registered their SSID with their resident authority (where they call home).

The technology behind the security and privacy is open source and globally proven to be highly complex but reliable, and the use is as simple as the voter providing some basic identification such as a biometric measure or a pass phrase. Non-repudiation is established as this “measure” provides unique information that only the voter would know or have.

Within the United States, the Constitution has delegated to the states, the authority to set the times, places and methods for elections. It would be natural to establish the DigitalVote registration with each State’s Secretary along with current infrastructure to register voters, maintain records, and manage elections. The primary asset is a blockchain immutable ledger that records votes in a verified form but is viewable by the public and can not be modified without exposing the tampering. This asset operates on a computer and does not require a special election machine. The computations involved in maintaining and computing the blockchain makes the activity of verification public while enabling tamper detection and corruption.
Basic Voting Method
For the sake of moving toward a computer based accounting system, offices are given a unique number for identification. Candidates are also given unique numbers. The issue of write in candidates who must be qualified and registered is less of a problem of hand tallying because there is no longer a reason to limit the ballots only to an accepted slate of party candidates.
The voting process is to create a vote record identified by a voter registration number. The voter “logs in” using their registration number, which provides a webform associated with the voter registry (local, state, and federal offices, and candidates eligible for those offices).
The vote process is to select candidate options for offices just as done on touch screens today.
The vote itself is a list of tuples consisting of office value, candidate value pairs. The vote submission requests the biometric or Pass Phrase key, in addition with the voter’s private key to encrypt the vote which is then encrypted with the Secretary of State’s public key and the unique vote session key. The three keys limit interception of data between the voting location and the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State’s key also consists of a public / private key mechanism, where data can be encrypted publicly and decrypted only by the Secretary of State’s system.
The encrypted vote is then processed using the voter’s registration number, bringing up their escrowed public key, and the vote is decrypted. The voter’s number is encrypted into 2 fields, one encrypted by the State public key, and one encrypted by the voter’s public key. The votes and these 2 fields become a vote record which has a checksum appended.

The vote record is inserted into the blockchain, and the index is encrypted by the voter’s public key and returned as a confirmation of vote recording. The receipt can be printed for later confirmation.

By placing the vote in the public viewed blockchain, the voter can verify that their own vote has not been changed.

To prevent identification of voters and their addition to the blockchain, additional “Fake records” can be generated and inserted at the same time. A Fake record is any record which does not have a registered voter’s ID as the source of vote record. As the State holds the list of valid voter IDs, a random value that doesn’t match can be inserted into a log and used to submit a record. During busy voting where there may be co-processing of many voters, no fake insertions would be necessary but any “watchers” would not be able to determine what voter submitted which vote.

When the polls close, no further transactions are added to the block chain. The list of fake IDs are encrypted with the State’s public key creating a means to identify the fake records. Independent audits can then tally the read-only blockchain providing peg counts. Individuals can retrieve their vote record from the blockchain and verify they were not disqualified and that their vote has not been changed.

A table appears below showing the key process

Implementation

State legislatures have the authority to add DigitalVoting as a legal method.
State Secretaries need to establish a key escrow database for their voter registrations.
Individuals can use open tools to create a pair of keys (private/public) at registration or at home (Self Soverign IDs).
Individuals submit their public key with citizenship and residency proof to the SOS.
State establishes an empty file to hold fake voter IDs generated.
For those voters who retained their private key, it would need to be accessable during voting. Otherwise the private key can be downloaded with the voting ballot. The Key will still require personal information (phrase or biometric) to be submitted at the time of voting.
On site registration can be implemented with the key generation process and immediate voting. Voter registration should include a verification of prior voting and extra scrutiny for those “first time voters”. The request to register could be asserted against prior state databases reducing dual precinct/state voting.
A challenge process is a quick search to remove double voting and enable fraud detection.

Formal Steps

Registration

Voter decides on passPhrase or biometric seed
Voter creates Keys with seed
State determines voter validity
State preserves voter public key issues VoterID
Voter decides on private key state storage
Voter private inserted in secret encrypted database

Voting

Secure session initiated to State, web or in person
Election login screen sent with state public key
voterID encrypted and passed to state
State retrieves voter’s private key if stored
Ballot is sent to user’s terminal
Voter makes selections and click submit
IF private key not sent, private key is requested
Voter supplies private key storage
System requests passKey Phrase/biometric
passkey and private are used to encrypt vote record
State public key encrypts vote record
Vote is submitted with State public encrypted VoterID

Recording Vote

State decrypts VoterID
State uses VoterID to lookup voter pubkey
State decrypts Vote with Voter Public key
State decrypts Vote with State Private key
State encrypts ID with State Public
State encrypts ID with Voter public
State creates vote record including 2 encrypted Voter ID, decrypted vote and checksum
State submits vote into blockchain and returns index
State returns encrypted Index with State Private and Voter public
State optionally injects fake voter record if needed

Confirming Recorded Vote

Terminal decrypts index using voter private and state Public
Assume printed receipt

Digital Voting has not yet been implemented or accepted by our Government. That doesn’t prevent the technology from being developed.

Basic Voting Method