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The 2024 US presidential election showcased the general public’s rising enthusiasm for prediction markets and citizen journalism. Nonetheless, whereas blockchain-backed choices promise to empower residents like by no means earlier than, probably the most urgent challenge impacting the way forward for our authorities stays voter privateness and safety. Paper techniques are pricey and sluggish, and present digital voting techniques lack privateness, transparency and accessibility—undermining belief in democracy.
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Enter zero-knowledge proofs: a cryptographic methodology that ensures privacy-preserving, succinct, and unfalsifiable proofs that supply a transformative resolution for nationwide elections. By enabling verifiable, tamper-proof votes, ZKPs can revolutionize democratic processes, guaranteeing voter privateness, election integrity, and transparency with out reliance on trusted authorities. ZKPs have the potential to unlock mathematically safe democracies.
Understanding the place and the way paper ballots went incorrect
Regardless of technological developments in each perform of our on a regular basis lives, the US voting system nonetheless largely depends on paper ballots. The truth is, in August of this yr, it was projected that 98% of all votes for presidential candidates in November can be forged on paper. Whereas paper techniques are sometimes seen as safe, they inherently require belief and depart voter knowledge susceptible to breaches, misuse, and identification theft.
Moreover, conventional techniques supply little transparency or mechanisms for voters to confirm their vote’s integrity, fueling public scepticism and disinformation. For instance, the 2020 US elections noticed widespread allegations partly as a result of voters lacked a dependable technique to confirm outcomes independently. As we’ve seen, insecure techniques erode belief and perpetuate myths about electoral integrity.
How conventional strategies of digital voting supply flawed techniques
Whereas digital techniques have been launched to modernize elections and scale back prices, they nonetheless pose a major danger to honest elections and include trade-offs in safety and belief. That’s as a result of these techniques depend on centralized intermediaries, making them susceptible to tampering, coercion and privateness violations.
Early makes an attempt to handle these points, akin to blockchain-based techniques, introduce decentralization and self-tallying. Nonetheless, these blockchain-based techniques usually fell in need of addressing scalability and securing voter’s private info. The shortage of any true privateness inherent to present decentralized blockchain know-how runs the chance of compromising voter privateness, exposing each a voter’s identification and poll decisions, not in contrast to paper or conventional digital techniques.
What’s wanted is a technological system that may guarantee voter integrity and privateness and stop manipulation whereas lowering the info that’s saved on-chain—one thing that enables for sooner and extra environment friendly vote processing with out compromising safety. That is the place ZKP know-how stands out. By resolving the trade-offs between transparency and privateness whereas sustaining scalability, ZKPs present a basis for safe, verifiable, and environment friendly voting.
Introducing ZK proofs: The following-gen resolution to voter integrity
ZKPs supply the very resolution wanted to guard voter privateness and allow scalable voting processes. That’s as a result of ZKPs permit a voter to show eligibility or vote validity with out revealing their identification or vote alternative, guaranteeing each privateness and integrity within the course of. To take action, ZKPs depend on mathematical rules that allow the verification of claims, akin to vote validity in elections, with out disclosing any private knowledge or delicate particulars. Moreover, ZK off-chain computations can handle scalability points in blockchain-based e-voting techniques. By lowering on-chain storage necessities, this technique makes dealing with large-scale elections possible whereas sustaining transparency, privateness, and common verifiability.
Right here’s a extra in-depth take a look at how ZKPs can construct mathematically safe democracies and resolve points with current digital voting techniques:
1. Defending voter anonymity: ZKPs permit voters to authenticate the validity of their vote or different documentation with out revealing underlying private knowledge or paperwork, thus defending their privateness. That is made potential by way of the three elements of the ZKP’s algorithm: completeness, soundness, and zero-knowledge. Completeness works like this: a press release (X) is true, and each the prover and the verifier appropriately observe the protocol, the verifier should settle for the proof as true. The proof can’t be falsified, guaranteeing reliability. Equally, the soundness part signifies that if the assertion (X) is fake, the verifier won’t be satisfied by the proof, even when everybody follows the protocol appropriately.
2. Enabling decentralized record-keeping: In a ZKP system, a decentralized and clear ledger (the blockchain) information votes, establishing accountability and safety.
3. Guaranteeing voting transparency and integrity: ZKPs allow a collusion-resistant system that empowers voters to confirm that their vote was precisely recorded within the tally with out revealing their vote preferences, guaranteeing belief and integrity within the voting course of.
4. Establishing mathematical safety: ZKPs present sturdy ensures, confirming that the voting protocol is safe.
Actual-world functions of ZKPs in voting
ZKP-based voting is not theoretical. In October 2024, Georgia’s main opposition social gathering, the United Nationwide Motion, launched “United House,” an identification app constructed by Rarimo, a protocol specializing in decentralized digital identities. This app makes use of blockchain and ZKPs to make sure safe and nameless voting, aiming to fight low voter turnout by rewarding participation and defending voter identities.
Different initiatives like zkPassport, Anon Aandhaar, and OpenPassport exhibit the potential for integrating ZKPs into identification verification techniques, proving attributed info like nationality or age with out exposing privateness info.
Current limitations of ZKP-based identification
Whereas ZKPs supply groundbreaking potential for safe voting techniques, they nonetheless face challenges, notably their reliance on passports for verification. Passport possession will not be common—solely round 50% of the US inhabitants holds a legitimate passport, and charges are a lot decrease in lots of creating international locations. Furthermore, passports lack biometric validation, making them inclined to fraud by way of stolen or counterfeit paperwork. Corrupt issuing authorities might theoretically manipulate voting outcomes by creating invalid paperwork that nonetheless go verification.
One other basic problem lies within the persistence of cryptographic signatures related to revoked or changed passports. Even when a doc is not legitimate, its digital signature usually stays usable, introducing a danger of misuse. Lastly, many ZKP-based techniques depend on a single level of verification—sometimes a passport—quite than aggregating attestations from a number of sources, akin to nationwide ID techniques, banking establishments, or cellular carriers. This reliance will increase the probability of system failures or manipulation.
An answer to those challenges exists in increasing the sources of identification verification to incorporate attestations from numerous and trusted attestors. Incorporating biometric validation into the passport verification course of might considerably scale back dangers related to stolen or borrowed paperwork. Moreover, the event of cryptographic requirements that permit for the invalidation of outdated signatures would handle vulnerabilities posed by revoked or changed paperwork.
ZKPs signify a paradigm shift in safe voting, addressing vulnerabilities in conventional and blockchain-based techniques. By enabling mathematically safe, privacy-preserving elections, ZKPs have the potential to foster belief, transparency, and participation in democratic processes. As ZKP know-how evolves, it holds the potential to unlock democracies that aren’t solely safe but in addition extra inclusive, equitable, and participatory.
This text was co-authored by Andre Omietanskiand Amal Ibraymi.
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Andre Omietanski & Amal Ibraymi
Andre Omietanski is normal counsel at Aztec Labs, which is creating the privacy-first Layer-2 on Ethereum that allows builders to construct privacy-preserving functions whereas guaranteeing compliance. Andre spent over a decade at White & Case in London, the place he left as counsel, gaining in depth, world and numerous expertise in advanced conventional finance transactions. Previous to becoming a member of Aztec Labs, he was a crypto advisor to early-stage startups within the Ethereum, Cosmos and Polkadot ecosystems.
Amal Ibraymi is the authorized counsel at Aztec Labs, the place she helps the corporate’s authorized efforts to advocate for privacy-enhancing applied sciences and decentralized finance. Earlier than becoming a member of Aztec, Amal was a privateness affiliate on the New York and Paris workplaces of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, the place she suggested on knowledge safety, cryptography, and world privateness compliance. Amal additionally beforehand labored on the Workplace of Authorized Affairs on the United Nations Secretariat in New York Metropolis, the Worldwide Courtroom of Arbitration of the Worldwide Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, and as a Privateness Fellow on the OECD within the Paris headquarters. Amal is dually skilled within the U.S. and France, holding an LLM from NYU College of Legislation and a JD/MA from Sciences Po Paris.
