Proverum: A Hybrid Public Verifiability and Decentralized Identity Management

TL;DR

Proverum is a hybrid system combining private permissioned ledgers and public blockchains to enhance trust, voter identity management, and verifiability in electoral processes, demonstrated through Swiss remote postal voting.

Contribution

It introduces Proverum, a novel hybrid architecture for public verifiability and decentralized identity management in voting systems, integrating private and public blockchain technologies.

Findings

Mitigates threats in remote postal voting systems

Ensures voter eligibility and vote integrity

Addresses decentralized identity management challenges

Abstract

Trust in electoral processes is fundamental for democracies. Further, the identity management of citizen data is crucial, because final tallies cannot be guaranteed without the assurance that every final vote was cast by an eligible voter. In order to establish a basis for a hybrid public verifiability of voting, this work (1) introduces Proverum, an approach combining a private environment based on private permissioned Distributed Ledgers with a public environment based on public Blockchains, (2) describes the application of the Proverum architecture to the Swiss Remote Postal Voting system, mitigating threats present in the current system, and (3) addresses successfully the decentralized identity management in a federalistic state.