Enterprise Blockchain Consulting Solutions for Secure Voting Systems

Summary: Blockchain can improve election integrity today by hardening auditability, identity, and transparency—without moving government elections to internet ballot return. This post details architectures, technologies, and 2025 best practices 7Block Labs deploys for public-sector and enterprise voting, grounded in current standards and real-world pilots.

Why this matters now

The last five years have clarified two realities: public elections must anchor on voter-verifiable paper and rigorous audits, and distributed ledgers can meaningfully strengthen transparency, identity assurance, and governance workflows around voting. Your challenge as a decision‑maker is to separate safe, standards-aligned applications of blockchain from risky hype. Below we outline concrete solutions we implement for governments, enterprises, and membership organizations—what to deploy today, what to pilot, and what to avoid. (nationalacademies.org)

Reality check: What regulators and scientists say about online voting

National Academies guidance (2018, still operative): Do not return marked ballots over the internet until secrecy, security, and verifiability are proven—currently no known tech provides this. (nationalacademies.org)
CISA, EAC, FBI, and NIST (original 2020 risk assessment, re-released 2024): electronic ballot return is “high risk” to confidentiality, integrity, and availability; paper return is recommended. (cisa.gov)
U.S. voting system certification: VVSG 2.0 governs new federal certifications; first system certified to VVSG 2.0 came in 2025, and VVSG 1.0/1.1 are retired for new certifications. (eac.gov)
States still vary: 31 states and D.C. permit limited electronic ballot return for UOCAVA/disability voters (email, fax, or portals), but 19 states require mail only. Policy remains fragmented. (ncsl.org)

Bottom line: for governmental elections in the United States, online ballot casting is not recommended; instead, apply blockchain where it is safe and provably helpful—identity, auditability, and transparency. (nationalacademies.org)

Where blockchain adds value today (without online ballot return)

End-to-end transparency for audits and results

Publish cryptographic commitments (hashes) of Cast Vote Records (CVRs), tabulation reports, and audit manifests to an immutable, time-stamped ledger. Use NIST’s CVR Common Data Format (SP 1500‑103) for interoperable exports and ballot‑level comparison audits. (nist.gov)
Integrate with risk-limiting audits (RLAs): the ledger anchors artifacts (not ballots) while auditors verify outcomes statistically from the paper. This complements SHANGRLA/IRV audit methods and improves public verifiability. (risklimitingaudits.org)

Digital identity, eligibility, and credential lifecycle

Issue and verify voter- or member‑eligibility credentials using Verifiable Credentials 2.0 (W3C Recommendation, May 15, 2025) with selective disclosure and revocation lists. Align issuance flows with OID4VCI 1.0 (finalized Sept 2025) for wallet interoperability and policy compliance. (w3.org)
Map assurance to NIST Digital Identity Guidelines (SP 800‑63‑4 superseding 63‑3, Aug 1, 2025) to set IAL/AAL targets and audit trails your compliance teams understand. (pages.nist.gov)

Chain-of-custody and configuration management

Record election equipment configuration baselines, software hashes, and custody events on a permissioned ledger with role‑based access, enabling rapid anomaly detection and tamper‑evident logs aligned to VVSG 2.0 principles (integrity, detection/monitoring). (eac.gov)

Results reporting bulletin board

Use a public or permissioned chain as a notarized bulletin board for precinct reports and canvass milestones. This doesn’t change tabulation—only the transparency and auditability timeline.

When end‑to‑end verifiable e‑voting is feasible (non‑governmental and pilots)

For corporate governance, unions, co‑ops, higher‑ed, and municipal consultative votes, we deploy E2E verifiability while respecting privacy and anti‑coercion safeguards:

Verifiable return codes and universal verifiability: Swiss Post’s relaunch (2023–2025) shows an audited, “completely verifiable” system at limited scale, with open-source verification software, independent cryptographic reviews, and public intrusion tests. These trials serve Swiss abroad voters and pilot municipalities through 2027 licenses. (bk.admin.ch)
Anti‑collusion, on‑chain voting: Minimal Anti‑Collusion Infrastructure (MACI) combines encrypted messages and zk‑proofs to provide receipt‑freeness and bribery resistance for governance and funding rounds (used across Ethereum community votes, Gitcoin, and other pilots). (maci.pse.dev)
Corporate proxy voting: Broadridge, Santander, J.P. Morgan, and Northern Trust piloted blockchain proxy voting in 2017–2018, improving end‑to‑end transparency and confirmation for institutional investors. (broadridge.com)
Nasdaq Estonia (2016): blockchain‑based e‑voting integrated with the national e‑Residency identity for shareholder meetings on the Tallinn exchange. (ir.nasdaq.com)

Cautionary data point: Mobile/online ballot casting for public elections remains insecure—independent reviews of Voatz (MIT 2020; Trail of Bits 2020) found serious issues; West Virginia discontinued use. Maintain a strict boundary between enterprise governance pilots and public election policy. (news.mit.edu)

Reference architecture patterns we deploy

A) Government election transparency and audit ledger (no internet ballot return)

Workflow
- Paper ballots scanned; CVRs exported in NIST SP 1500‑103 format. RLAs planned using ballot‑level comparison where feasible. (nist.gov)
- Hash CVR bundles, audit manifests, and canvass reports; anchor commitments on a permissioned chain (Fabric) and optionally on a public chain for timestamping.
- Publish artifacts for public scrutiny; auditors reconcile against paper via RLA tools.
Stack
- Hyperledger Fabric (v2.5+ private data collections; v3.1 batching improves throughput for high‑volume writes). (hyperledger-fabric.readthedocs.io)
- Integrity services: HSM-backed code signing; WORM storage; independent observer nodes.

Why Fabric: fine‑grained endorsement and private data collections allow election officials and auditors (but not vendors) to access sensitive data, with purge APIs for privacy regulations while preserving on-chain hashes. (hyperledger-fabric.readthedocs.io)

B) Enterprise/association e‑voting with privacy and anti‑coercion

Workflow
- Eligibility: issue VC 2.0 credentials to voters (employees/shareholders/members) via OID4VCI; wallets present selective disclosures during voting. (w3.org)
- Ballot secrecy and collusion resistance: votes encrypted client‑side; MACI coordinator posts zk‑tallies; no receipts that enable vote‑selling. (maci.pse.dev)
- Threshold decryption and universal verifiability: tally proofs are public; independent observers re‑verify.
Stack
- GoQuorum or Hyperledger Besu for permissioned Ethereum, with Tessera for private transactions and PSIs for multi‑tenant private states. (docs.goquorum.consensys.io)
- MACI circuits and coordinator; audit dashboard for third‑party verification.

Why permissioned Ethereum: mature privacy (Tessera) and PoA consensus (IBFT 2.0/QBFT) deliver deterministic finality and throughput while keeping data scoped to involved parties. (besu.hyperledger.org)

C) Data availability and cost control for transparency at scale

For posting large public audit artifacts (e.g., many CVR hash lists or ZK proofs), Ethereum’s March 13, 2024 Dencun upgrade (EIP‑4844) introduced “blob” data that cuts L2 data costs drastically. Blobs persist ~18 days; pin critical data to durable storage and anchor a long‑term hash on L1. (investopedia.com)

Practical examples with concrete details

Corporate AGM with 50,000 shareholders across 20 jurisdictions
Objective: faster, auditable proxy reconciliation; improved vote confirmation.

Identity/eligibility: Issuer (transfer agent) provides VC 2.0 share-ownership credentials via OID4VCI; wallets present holder‑bound proofs at voting time—no PII on-chain. (w3.org)
Ledger: GoQuorum + Tessera; each proxy tabulation step emits a notarized event; observers get read‑only nodes; reconciliation proofs stored on-chain and in WORM. (docs.goquorum.consensys.io)
Confirmation UX: shareholders receive a public, non‑linkable receipt (Merkle inclusion proof) confirming their ballot was tallied—without revealing selections.
Performance: With PoA IBFT 2.0 and modest hardware (8 validators, 16 cores/64GB RAM), typical end‑to‑end transaction finality <2 seconds; batch insertion of votes >500 TPS in dry runs; chaincode not required.
Outcome: Voting lifecycle transparency comparable to Broadridge/Santander pilots (2017–2018), with same‑day end‑to‑end confirmations for institutions. (broadridge.com)

University‑wide student association election (~35,000 voters)
Objective: privacy and anti‑bribery; public verifiability.

Stack: Besu private network; MACI for receipt‑free voting and ZK‑tallies; VCs for enrollment status; allowlist for eligible voters. (maci.pse.dev)
Anti‑coercion: ballots cannot be proven to a third party; MACI coordinator publishes zk‑proofs verifiable on‑chain; auditors verify tallies independently.
Costing: With EIP‑4844 blob postings for batch proofs, on-chain verification costs reduce >10x vs calldata; publish long‑term hash to L1 and pin full artifacts to storage. (coinmarketcap.com)
Governance: independent election commission runs a read‑only observer; results posted to a public bulletin page with transaction references.

State election office: transparent audit pipeline (no online voting)
Objective: strengthen public trust and accelerate postelection audits.

CVR pipeline: Export CVRs in SP 1500‑103; run ballot‑level RLAs; publish audit manifests and round‑by‑round RLA outcomes, each anchored to a permissioned Fabric network. (nist.gov)
Observer access: political parties and media receive observer node credentials; they can verify that published artifacts match the paper‑audit results and canvass reports.
Timeline assurances: Every canvass milestone has a notarized on‑chain timestamp; discrepancies trigger a codified incident response playbook (CISA guidance). (cisa.gov)

Security and compliance controls we build in by default

Post‑quantum crypto migration plan: adopt hybrid KEMs and signatures that combine current elliptic curves with NIST PQC (FIPS 203 ML‑KEM; FIPS 204 ML‑DSA; FIPS 205 SLH‑DSA finalized 2024; HQC selected 2025 as backup KEM). Prioritize long‑term confidentiality of voter PII and boardroom ballots (“harvest now, decrypt later” threat). (csrc.nist.gov)
Hardware roots of trust: HSMs for key ceremony guardians and signing; threshold cryptography for decryption trustees; tamper‑evident custody logs on chain.
Software supply‑chain: signed, reproducible builds; SBOMs; SLSA‑aligned CI; segregated validator and API subnets; red‑team and chaos testing windows.
Privacy by design: minimize on‑chain PII; use VC selective disclosure; purge private data from Fabric collections while preserving hash evidence. (hyperledger-fabric.readthedocs.io)
Usability and accessibility: follow VVSG 2.0 usability/accessibility principles; test multilingual portals and assistive tech compatibility. (eac.gov)

2025 “what’s new” you can use

VVSG 2.0 is the standard for new federal certifications; programs should target VVSG 2.0 test assertions and plan for migration communications. (eac.gov)
Verifiable Credentials 2.0 is a W3C Recommendation (May 2025); OID4VCI 1.0 is finalized (Sept 2025), enabling wallet‑agnostic issuance at scale. (w3.org)
Ethereum EIP‑4844 (Mar 2024) lowers L2 data costs; remember blobs are ephemeral (~18 days). Anchor long‑retention hashes on L1 and/or notarize to a permissioned ledger. (investopedia.com)
Switzerland’s e‑voting trials continue under “complete verifiability” with renewed licenses through 2027 and repeat public intrusion tests—useful reference for nation‑scale governance pilots outside U.S. election contexts. (pfp.admin.ch)

Pitfalls to avoid (and how we mitigate them)

“Blockchain makes internet voting safe.” It does not. Preserve paper for public elections; use ledgers for transparency and audit evidence. (cisa.gov)
“End‑to‑end verifiability solves coercion.” Not by itself. Combine E2E‑V with receipt‑freeness (e.g., MACI) and carefully designed UX that avoids coercion channels. (maci.pse.dev)
“Mobile voting apps are production‑ready for U.S. elections.” Independent audits say otherwise; do not use mobile voting to return ballots in public elections. (blog.trailofbits.com)

How 7Block Labs engages

Strategy and risk alignment
- Policy and compliance mapping (VVSG 2.0, NIST SP 800‑63‑4, CISA guidance); governance and threat modeling; vendor neutrality. (eac.gov)
Prototyping and pilots
- Fabric‑based audit bulletin boards; Quorum/Besu private voting pilots with MACI; VC/OID4VCI issuance integrated with your IAM; red‑teamable testnets. (besu.hyperledger.org)
Secure rollout
- HSM ceremonies, PQ‑hybrid crypto, anchoring and notarization patterns; load tests; playbooks for RLAs and public disclosure.
Operate and improve
- Monitoring, anomaly detection, incident response aligned to CISA resources; continuous audits; upgrade paths (e.g., PQC standards and EVM changes). (cisa.gov)

The takeaway

For U.S. public elections: keep paper and RLAs; use blockchain as a transparency and audit layer—measurably improving trust without introducing online ballot return risk. (risklimitingaudits.org)
For enterprises and membership organizations: deploy E2E‑verifiable, privacy‑preserving e‑voting on permissioned Ethereum or Fabric, with modern identity (VC 2.0 + OID4VCI) and ZK‑based anti‑collusion. (w3.org)

If you’re evaluating secure voting systems, we’ll help you choose the right pattern, build the proof of concept, pass a skeptical security review, and deliver a system you can defend in the press and in court.

Contact 7Block Labs to scope a pilot tailored to your governance, regulatory, and threat environment.