This project aims to shed more light on the overall research question, how to design high assurance blockchain governance software, and can such protocols scale to Internet Voting Protocols.

(RO) To advance the state of the art of high assurance cryptographic software, especially for blockchain governance protocols and voting protocols.

(WP1) To achieve (RO), we start by working towards a high assurance implementation of a blockchain governance protocol (e.g. the one used by Concordium) and an existing blockchain voting protocol, such as the Open Vote Network, or Election Guard. If there is sufficient progress in the design of a software-independent protocol we will retarget our research to such a protocol. This will use existing software projects developed at AU: SSProve, ConCert and various libraries for high assurance cryptographic primitives. AU will take the lead for this WP.

(WP2) The Concordium blockchain provides a secure and private way to put credentials, such as passport information, on the internet. In this project we aim to integrate this with legacy ID infrastructure, such as MitID. We will investigate how to reuse such blockchain based identities for internet voting. We aim to address (4) above in this way. Concordium will take the lead for this WP.

(WP3) Implementation of the cryptographic protocol. Based on the results from (WP1), we propose to develop an open-source library that makes our high assurance blockchain voting technology available for use in third-party products. We envision to release a prototype similar to Election Guard (which is provided by Microsoft), but with a blockchain providing the ID infrastructure, as well as functioning as a public bulletin board. ALX will take the lead for this WP.

Scientific value
Internet voting provides a unique collection of challenges, such as, for example, vote privacy, software quality, receipt freeness, coercion resistance, and dispute resolution. Subsets of them can be solved separately, here we aim to guarantee vote privacy and software quality by the means of a privacy-preserving and accountable blockchain and formally verify substantial parts of the resulting voting protocol.

Capacity building
The proposed project pursues capacity building by training a PhD student. Alexandra will build capacity in rust, smart contracts and high assurance cryptographic software.

Business value
The project is highly interesting to and relevant for the industry. There are two reasons why it is interesting for Concordium. On the one hand, voting is an excellent application demonstrating the vision of the blockchain and, on the other hand, Concordium will as part of the project implement a voting scheme to be used for decentralized governance of the blockchain. More precisely, the Concordium blockchain is designed to support applications where users can act privately while maintaining accountability and meeting regulatory requirements.

Furthermore, it is an explicit goal of Concordium to support formally verified smart contracts. Obviously, all these goals fit nicely with the proposed project, and it will be important for Concordium to demonstrate that the blockchain actually supports the secure voting schemes developed in the project. With respect to governance, Concordium has a need to develop a strong voting scheme allowing members of our community to vote on proposed features and to elect members of the Governance Committee. The project is of great interest to the Alexandra Institute to apply and improve in-house capacity for implementing cryptographic algorithms. The involvement of Alexandra will guarantee that the theoretical findings of the proposed project will we translated into usable real world products.

Societal value
Internet voting was stalled for three years in Switzerland due to insecure protocols and implementations. We aim to develop technology to improve the security (audits) of such protocols and implementations. Around 5 billion dollars were lost since 2018 due to insecure blockchain implementations, often effecting retail investors. Our project aims to improve the state of the art of cryptographic software, and thus influence regulation on minimal quality requirements for blockchains, similar to existing Swiss regulation for e-voting.

January 1, 2023 – December 31, 2025 – 3 years.

Total budget DKK 7,5 million / DIREC investment DKK 1,9 million

The research project aims to shed more light on the overall research question, if formal verification of software-independence can strengthen public confidence. Affirming this research question in the positive would lead to a novel understanding of what it means for voting protocols to be trustworthy, it would lead to an understanding how to increase public confidence in Internet Voting, which may be useful for countries that lack trust in the security of paper records.

(RO1) Explore the requirement of software-independence in the context of formal verification of existing Internet voting protocols.

(RO2) Study the public confidence in Greenland with respect to software-independence and formally verified Internet Voting protocols and systems.

Software Independence

In order to achieve (RO1), we will consider two theories of what constitutes software-independence. There is the game-theoretic view, which, similar to proof by reduction and simulation in cryptography, reduces software-independence of one protocol to another. The statistical view gives precise bounds on the likelihood of the election technology to produce an incorrect result. We plan to understand how to capture formally the requirement of software-independence by selecting existing or newly developed voting protocols and generate formally verified implementations. For all voting protocols that we design within this project, we will use proof assistants to derive mechanized proofs of software independence.

User Studies

To achieve (RO2), we will, together with the Domestic Affairs Division, Govern-ment of Greenland study the effects of formal verification of software independence on public confidence. The core hypothesis of these studies is that strategic communication of concepts, such as software inde-pendence, can be applied in such a way that it strengthens public confidence. We will invite Greenland voters to participate in pilot demonstrations and user studies and will evaluate answers qualitatively and quantitatively.

Scientific value
Internet voting provides a unique collection of challenges, such as election integrity, vote privacy, receipt-freeness, coercion resistance, and dispute resolution. Here we aim to focus on election integrity, and show that if we were to verify formally the property of software-independence of a voting system that would increase the public confidence of the voters in the accuracy of the election result.

Capacity building
The proposed project pursues two kinds of capacity building. First, by training the PhD student and university students affiliated with the project, making Denmark a leading place for secure Internet voting. Second, if successful, the results of the project will contribute to the Greenland voting project and to international capacity building in the sense that they will strengthen democratic institutions.

Societal value
Some nations are rethinking their respective electoral processes and the ways they hold elections. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, approximately a third of all nations scheduled to hold a national election, have postponed them. It is therefore not surprising that countries are exploring Internet Voting as an additional voting channel. The result of this project would contribute to making Internet election more credible, and therefore strengthen developing and post-conflict democracies around the world.

July 1, 2023 – June 30, 2026 – 3 years.

Total budget DKK 4,6 million / DIREC investment DKK 1,7 million