E Voting and Quantum Safe Technologies: How Digital Trust Solutions Can Help Combat Electoral Fraud Claims

By Aisling Dawson | 4Q 2024 | IN-7604

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In partnership with its subsidiary company, SEALSQ, WISeKey recently revealed its plans to revolutionize electronic voting (e-voting) by integrating SEALSQ's Post-Quantum (PQ) cryptographic chips into its innovative digital authentication platform, ensuring quantum safe, end-to-end protection for voting processes, enhanced with extensive Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities, including threat detection, predictive analytics, biometric identification, and Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities. SEALSQ's QS7001 quantum-resistant semiconductors boast Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 5+, Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 & FIPS 140-3 compliance, and are equipped with two of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-approved PQ algorithms, Kyber and Dilithium, to provide quantum-secure security. While SEALSQ's PQ chips remain in the development stage, widespread commercialization is expected by 2025.

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and blockchain technology uniquely satisfy the demand for non-reputability, auditability, and verifiability within e-voting. By combining these technologies with AI and PQ capabilities, WISeKey and SEALSQ's partnership represents an evolutionary step forward in the digital authentication space, cementing their position as leaders in the charge for quantum-resistant digital trust technologies. Given the advancing threat of quantum computers, WISeKey and SEALSQ's solution offers long-term protection of sensitive voting data against quantum attacks from unauthorized access or vote tampering. Voters' unique digital identities, cryptographically sealed with their private keys, enable secure voter authentication, while the immutable, blockchain ledger ensures vote integrity from the beginning to the end of the electoral process, authenticating voters while protecting their anonymity. SEALSQ's PQ algorithms add a supplementary layer of cryptographic protection within this peer-to-peer network, securing communication channels between voters and election authorities. Concurrently, AI-enhanced semiconductors dynamically monitor, detect, and learn from unusual behavioral, utilize adaptive encryption for user authorization. They also and augment access control and threat detection with AI-enabled predictive analytics, simulated security scenarios, and biometric voter verification to provide enhanced spoofing protection.

Claims of electoral fraud and vote tampering were rampant following the 2020 U.S. election and remain ubiquitous following the recent 2024 result, undermining democratic processes not only in the United States but on a global scale. Thus, transparent voting records and quantum guarantees of vote security, privacy, and integrity, as promised by WISeKey's e-voting solution, will be crucial to counteracting declining trust in national democracies, as well as securing continued political participation. Additionally, the convenience of e-voting is expected to boost voter turnout by maximizing accessibility, especially among marginalized populations and in remote areas. Enabling voters to cast their votes at home presents positive socioeconomic implications. Voters are reported to feel more comfortable at home and less likely to allow political intimidation to impact their vote. And the voting process itself will be more streamlined, with WISeKey's automated smart contract capabilities limiting any potential non-compliance with electoral guidelines, ensuring efficiency and reducing the costs associated with human error.

Despite the prospective technical, societal, and economic benefits of WISeKey and SEALSQ's e-voting solution, integrating e-voting into democratic systems is an onerous task with many obstacles. To maximize their chances of success, digital trust vendors should:

• Prioritize Adaptability, Planning, and Stakeholder Coordination Throughout the PQ Migration Process: PQ cryptography remains a fluid and mercurial area where there has not yet been extensive real-world testing. By keeping the channels of dialogue and consistent communication open between stakeholders, including PQ experts, cybersecurity professionals, and technology implementers, vendors can ensure their system is adaptable to the most recent PQ best practices. Additionally, given the size and complexity of electoral systems, as well as the diversity of stakeholders involved, digital transformation brings with it the potential for severe disruption, which extensive planning will help to mitigate.
• Balance Efficiency Improvements with Hardware Costs: To sustain a national e-voting system's workload, high-performance hardware with optimized load balancing and server replication strategies is necessary. As increased efficiency is key to e-voting systems' value proposition; vendors should ensure that this is balanced with hardware costs.
• Ensure User Confidence in the System's Security Is as Strong as the Security Itself: To garner public confidence within an e-voting system, vendors must ensure the electorate trusts that system. System security alone is insufficient. One way to garner voter trust is by ensuring the electorate understands how their information is being secured and communicated throughout the electoral process. However, given the technical complexity of cryptographic proofs and blockchain technology, this may be difficult to achieve. Thus, vendors should also focus on providing transparent decision-making, particularly where AI is utilized, maximizing the accessibility of those explanations for a diverse audience.
• Consider Potential Tensions Between Voter Authentication and Secrecy: While PKI can be used to identify users, this must be combined with ensuring user anonymity to truly protect voters' democratic rights. This is particularly pertinent given the demand for vote provability. A cryptographic ballot system must be able to prove the inclusion of an individual's vote without impacting that vote's secrecy. Blockchain is one way of ensuring anonymity within a network.
• Examine the Political Climate and Tension Levels Before Implementing: Digital trust solutions like PKI and blockchain rely on a consensus of trust between the parties involved, which is difficult to achieve in acrimonious political climates. Thus, while WISeKey's solution shows promise in dealing with claims of voter fraud, ensuring that such a consensus is possible is a prerequisite before attempting to revolutionize voting within a given electoral system.