Make the citizen part of the audit.
I want people to be able to verify their own participation in an election and understand how the result is checked. The Sacred Ballot explores a different relationship between voters, witnesses, records, and the institutions entrusted with them.
“Votes are not secret. They are sacred.”
That is the premise of my June 2026 working paper. The proposal replaces an anonymous ballot with a witnessed, video-attested vote whose record is encrypted and protected through distributed custody. It would require substantial technical, legal, accessibility, and public scrutiny before implementation.
A proposed departure from today’s secret ballot. Washington’s Constitution requires secrecy when voters prepare and deposit their ballots, and state law protects the secrecy of the vote. Official use here would need to address those constitutional requirements, election law, accessibility, and voting-system approval. A willing county could not authorize that change on its own.
The proposed voting session
- Attend a recorded session.A voter states their full ballot before two randomly assigned community witnesses and an appointed recorder. The voter can challenge a witness they know and request reassignment.
- Affirm a free choice.The voter swears an oath that their vote is cast freely, without coercion or inducement.
- Seal the record.The design calls for an encrypted video record anchored to an append-only blockchain ledger, with access controlled through multiple keyholders.
- Receive a verification receipt.A personal cryptographic receipt is intended to help the voter verify the record and its inclusion in the count. The protocol would need to establish exactly what the receipt proves and how it avoids becoming evidence that another person could demand to verify the voter’s choices. Those properties have not yet been demonstrated.
Different access for different purposes.
The proposal distinguishes broad public oversight from access to an individual’s ballot or recording. These are proposed controls, whose security and effectiveness still need to be demonstrated.
| Level | Intended access |
|---|---|
| Public | Aggregate statistics, turnout patterns, and anomaly information. |
| Analytic | Authorized analysis of derived data with individual identity concealed in the design. |
| Judicial | Specific vote records for authorized audits, with judicial approval and multiple keyholders. |
| Raw record | Full video under the highest authorization threshold, involving multiple officials. |
| Historical | Full public release after the proposed 24-year stewardship period. |
Stewardship begins locally.
The draft places key generation at the precinct level, followed by a custody chain through district, county, state, and federal stewardship. Its aim is to distribute responsibility and reduce dependence on any single custodian.
The 24-year provision matters. Witnesses and the recorder would learn the voter’s choices during the session. Encryption would restrict later access to the recording; it would not erase what those people already know. The draft also proposes eventual public disclosure of individual records. Witness confidentiality, coercion risks, long-term privacy, and the consequences of disclosure must therefore be evaluated explicitly.
Protect the voter. Teach the system.
The working paper calls for penalties against coercion, witness disclosure, and demands to see another person’s verification receipt. It also calls for defined key-custody obligations and specific authorization rules for decryption.
Citizens would need accessible instruction on how the system works, how to use their receipt, how to challenge a witness, and how to report a concern. The paper proposes free civic instruction, including interactive AI-assisted explanations.
The intended principle is informed participation. Education is part of the election infrastructure, and the system’s protections need to be understandable to the people using them.
Earn wider adoption through evidence.
I propose beginning with a willing county, running a voluntary research pilot alongside existing election infrastructure for at least a full election cycle. Research could begin with mock or parallel ballots that do not determine official results. Any use for official voting would require the necessary legal changes and approvals as well as demonstrated results. Wider adoption would depend on evidence.
- County pilotCompare results, costs, participation, and the voter experience while retaining the existing system.
- Additional counties and statesExpand voluntarily only after meeting success criteria defined in advance and learning from the pilot.
- Federal considerationConsider national adoption only after substantial experience at smaller scales.
The draft identifies participation, audit completion, detection performance, citizen confidence, and understanding of the system as areas to evaluate.
A working proposal with real questions.
This is a concept under development. The paper itself identifies unresolved questions about witness selection, decryption triggers, infrastructure, key generation, and accessibility.
How would it protect against coercion?
The design proposes witness assignment, an oath, legal penalties, receipt protections, and restricted access. Whether those measures adequately address coercion—including pressure away from the voting session—needs to be tested. A recording alone cannot establish that every vote was free of pressure.
Would blockchain make the entire election secure?
The ledger is one proposed component. It could help reveal later changes to recorded data, but it would not by itself establish that the original record was accurate or the vote was freely cast. Device security, identity checks, recording, receipts, key custody, and administration would still matter. The working paper is not a completed or independently validated election system.
What about disability access or limited internet service?
The draft expressly leaves accessibility and low-bandwidth participation for further development. An implementation would need usable options for voters who cannot take part in a standard video session.
Is this a proposal to change the next election?
No implementation date is established here. The proposal begins with development and a voluntary local pilot, with wider adoption contingent on demonstrated results and the required legal framework.
Based on Jonathan Plumb’s The Sacred Ballot — Working Dossier v1.2, June 2026. This page summarizes a developing proposal; it does not describe an operating election system. Accuracy context reviewed October 22, 2026.
Current-law and technical background: Washington Constitution, Article VI, section 6; Washington voter rights; Washington voting-system requirements; EAC voting-system guidelines; and NIST’s blockchain overview. These sources describe existing requirements and technical limits; they do not endorse this proposal.