Sequent adopts VoteSecure to boost election auditability

Sequent has advanced the implementation of the open-source VoteSecure protocol in its digital election platform, becoming what it says is the first publicly declared election technology provider to do so.

The addition brings VoteSecure to a platform that, according to Sequent, has supported more than 330 elections and served more than 9.2 million voters across North America, Europe and Asia.

VoteSecure is an open-source software development kit for end-to-end verifiable mobile voting. It is designed to create cryptographically verifiable evidence at each critical stage of an election, including voter eligibility checks, ballot casting and vote counting.

The work comes as governments, unions and other organisations face rising scrutiny over trust in elections and pressure to show that voting systems can be independently checked. Sequent says the protocol, combined with the cryptographic systems already used in its platform, is intended to improve transparency and auditability.

How it works

The framework was developed by Free & Fair, a voting technology research company, and released after 16 months of research and development tied to the roadmap in the US Vote Foundation's Future of Voting report. According to Sequent, the architecture allows voters, election observers and auditors to confirm that ballots were cast, recorded and counted correctly while preserving ballot secrecy.

Sequent cited features including multi-factor authentication, biometric identity verification and air-gapped tabulation. Under that model, votes are counted only after tabulation systems are taken offline from the internet, and paper printouts are generated alongside traditional ballot channels.

The design also includes threshold cryptography, verifiable shuffling and decryption methods, and zero-knowledge proofs. Sequent says the framework was built using Rigourous Digital Engineering, a formal model-based systems engineering approach used in some critical infrastructure and national security projects.

Trust debate

Sequent presented the implementation as part of a wider debate about public confidence in democratic institutions. Digital election systems have faced persistent questions over transparency, security and whether the public can verify outcomes without relying solely on assurances from election administrators or technology suppliers.

It contrasted the VoteSecure approach with what it described as "black box" election technologies, where trust depends heavily on institutions or vendors rather than public auditability. Sequent says open-source protocols allow the system to be reviewed, audited and integrated by election technology providers, governments and civic organisations.

The announcement also marks a practical milestone: Sequent says it has turned a technical specification into working election infrastructure on its platform. That puts the company among a small group of providers seeking to apply cryptographic verification methods in live election environments rather than limiting them to research or pilot projects.

"We are at an inflection point in democratic history. Voters are asking whether their voices truly count, and election administrators are asking how to prove it," said Shai Bargil, chief executive officer and co-founder of Sequent. "The VoteSecure protocol helps to answer both questions with mathematical certainty. Our implementation of the protocol represents an important advancement for election technology in the U.S. because it moves electoral processes closer toward open, independently auditable and cryptographically verifiable elections."

Sequent was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in San Francisco. Its election software has been developed as open-source software since 2011 and is intended to let voters and auditors verify the integrity of elections and the correctness of results without exposing individual ballot choices.

The announcement also points to a broader shift in the election technology market, as vendors face pressure to show not only that systems are secure but also that they can produce evidence for outside review. That distinction has become more important as election disputes increasingly centre on public confidence as much as technical system design.

For Sequent, the implementation expands a platform already built around public auditability and cryptographic checks. It says the open-source nature of the VoteSecure protocols allows external parties to inspect the methods used in the system rather than rely on proprietary claims about how votes are processed.

"Election integrity can no longer rely solely on blind trust," Bargil said. "Modern election systems must provide verifiable evidence that votes were securely cast, accurately recorded and properly counted. Open standards and publicly auditable election infrastructure will play a major role in rebuilding confidence in democratic processes over the coming decade."