IEEE P2418.11: E-VOTING SYSTEMS WORKING GROUP

Title: Framework for Use of Distributed Ledger Technology in Security of Electronic Voting (e-Voting) Systems

Scope: The standard specifies the process and requirements for the framework of e-Voting systems. The process includes: a) application of Distributed Ledger Technology to enhance security of registrations and voting, b) real-time audits to detect and resolve suspicious activity, and c) a database to summarize results for a voting event.

Sponsoring Society and Committee: IEEE Industrial Electronics Society/ Industrial Electronics Society Standards Committee (IES/IES).

Working Group: Framework for Use of Distributed Ledger Technology in Security of Electronic Voting (e-Voting) Systems (IES/IES/EVSWG) ====== Contact Information for Working Group Chair: —

• Name: John Wnuk

• Email Address: jmwnuk@aol.com

Contact Information for Working Group Vice Chair:

• Name: Saif Aldeen Saad Obayes AL-Kadhim

• Email Address: saifaldeen.saad@ieee.org

*Society and Committee: IEEE Industrial Electronics Society/ Industrial Electronics Society Standards Committee (IES/IES) Contact Information for Standards Committee Chair: Name: Cheng-Jen Chen Email Address: c.j.chen@ieee.org

*Contact Information for Standards Representative: Name: Victor Huang Email Address: vklhuang@aol.com

Type of Ballot: Individual

Expected Date of submission of draft to the IEEE SA for Initial Standards Association Ballot: Dec 2022

Projected Completion Date for Submittal to RevCom: Sep 2023

Approximate number of people expected to be actively involved in the development of this project : 20

Scope of proposed standard: The standard specifies the process and requirements for the framework of e-Voting systems–where the process includes a) use of Distributed Ledger Technology to enhance security of registrations and voting (with electronic or paper ballots), and b) use of real-time audits to detect and resolve suspicious activity, and to summarize validated and suspicious results.

Is the completion of this standard dependent upon the completion of another standard? No

Purpose:

• The purpose of the standard is to provide procedures and protocols for Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)-enabled registrations and voting that can help secure the voting process. Secure voting is more than a signature on a voting log or voting envelope that contains a marked voting ballot. Secure voting includes: 1) a registration process that verifies authorized voters, 2) registered voters can authenticate their ballot and confirm their ballot was received and counted as intended without malicious changes, 3) a real-time audit that can detect suspicious activity, and 4) suspicious activity that is confirmed fraud is recorded but not counted with valid votes and is referred to law enforcement.

• Need for the Project: This project is intended to increase trust that elections are legitimate with a voting process that verifies sources, secures communications, confirms transactions, and detects (for investigation) suspected fraudulent voters, ballots, equipment, or activity.

• Stakeholders for the Standard: Stakeholders are voters (including those overseas and in the military), election officials and observers, producers of voting systems (equipment and software), electronic and physical handlers of voter identification cards and voting ballots, auditors, law enforcement, media, and the general public.

• Intellectual Property

• Is the Standards Committee aware of any copyright permissions needed for this project? Yes

Explanation:

• The EVSWG Chair has the copyright for eVoting and will release permission to IEEE as required.

• Is the Standards Committee aware of possible registration activity related to this project? No

• Are there other standards or projects with a similar scope? No

• Is it the intent to develop this document jointly with another organization? No

• Additional Explanatory Notes: The e-Voting standard is based on the published book “eVoting: Using Distributed Ledger Technology to Secure Elections.” One difference is that the e-Voting standard uses “shall” and “will,” while the eVoting book uses “would” and “could,” respectively. Included are electronic and paper systems for voting using DLT. Technically a DLT records transactions–of several related processes. Those processes would be involved in the creation (genesis) of blank voter identification cards or Fungible Tokens (FTs), and then the validation of registration data and if appropriate (nothing suspicious) creation of a unique one-of-a-kind voter identification card or Non-Fungible Token (NFT) for each registered voter. The DLT would record the creation of one or more batches of voter registration card FTs along with recording the creation of each NFT. A similar process would be followed in the creation and marking of voting ballot FTs and NFTs.

Link to eVoting eBook:

Link to Draft e-Voting Standard:

• For reference to how P2418.11 relates to other IEEE efforts, links are provided to The IEEE Blockchain Initiative and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) standards/projects. There is no activity related to Security of Electronic Voting (e-Voting) Systems.

Link to IEEE Blockchain Initiative:

Link to DLT Standards/Projects:

IES Context:

A. e-Voting events can be envisioned as data factories where each factory has a manufacturing process that is distributed (i.e., DLT) or centralized technology. The manufacturing process would separate valid data from errors or fraud, and preserve and count legitimately cast votes as well as detect when unauthorized people cast one or more ballots. Confirmed fraud (along with the related detected data suspicious data) would be referred to law enforcement.

B. Data factories for e-Voting would include:

1. Registration: DLT would separate valid voter ID data (i.e., the registered voters) from suspicious errors or fraudulent registrations.
2. Voting: DLT would separate valid marked ballot data (i.e., votes confirmed as valid) from suspicious errors or fraudulent voting.
3. Audits: Centralized technology would accumulate data from 1) and 2) into a valid database and suspicious database, and summaries would be available at various levels from precinct to national.

C. Purpose of industry (in general) is to make better products and services with lower costs. With e-Voting, the product (output) of registration is a data store of valid registered voters, and the product of voting is valid and tabulated vote counts. The services are intended to be more transparent and secure, with the aim of more effective and efficient processes than legacy methods with paper ballots and postal and other processing. Note that getting from vote counts to elected officials taking office is outside the scope of the e-Voting system.

D. Compliance certification is not included in this e-Voting standard. That would be a separate effort and PAR with schedules that would likely go beyond what is shown in 4.2 and 4.3 above.