Sealed ballots and digitally locked election results ensure that no one sees sensitive results too early - not even the election officials. With sealed voting, NemoVote ensures that election results are only visible when the seal is deliberately and traceably opened.
With sealed voting, election results are not automatically displayed at the end of the election, but remain digitally sealed - only visible when the seal is deliberately broken. NemoVote logs exactly who opened the result first and at what time, so that sensitive elections are even better protected and traceable.
In many elections, results may not be visible to everyone immediately after the close of voting - for example, because they are only to be announced in a specific committee, at a fixed time or together with other results. However, traditional online voting systems often display results automatically as soon as the election is over.
Sealed election results solve precisely this problem: although the digital system calculates the result, it deliberately withholds it until someone actively opens the seal. In this way, the analog moment of "opening the envelope" or "emptying the ballot box" is transferred to the digital world.
As far as we know, NemoVote is the only voting tool that can simulate a digital ballot box in this way.
With sealed voting, the results of an election are technically calculated after the polls close, but are not automatically displayed. Instead of clicking on "Show results" as usual, authorized users see a new option: "Break seal".
At the same time, NemoVote logs who was the first to break the seal, at what time and in which role. This makes it transparent when and by whom the results were first viewed.
In some scenarios, election committees, admins or moderators should be able to organize everything related to the election - but should not be able to break the seal on their own authority. NemoVote uses an extended role concept for precisely this purpose.
If desired, NemoVote can enable the right to break the seal only for very select individuals or in exceptional cases via support - for example, if an election committee expressly confirms the time at which the results are opened. This further strengthens the protection mechanism.
Sealed election results are particularly helpful when timing, neutrality or formal procedures play a major role.
Sealed voting creates additional layers of security around the announcement of results - without unnecessarily complicating the election process.
Although the feature itself was developed early on, it had been on the back burner for almost five years - i.e. since the early days of NemoVote. Only when our customer Reference: GO! onderwijs van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap actively requested Sealed Voting for an election did we finalize the function and put it into production.
GO! uses Sealed Voting because more than 100 partial elections were held over a period of around two weeks. Only after all partial elections had been completed were the results to be merged and shared. Sealed Voting was the decisive enabler for this - without digitally sealed results, the statutes could not have been implemented in this form.
At first glance, sealed voting seems like a small UI change - but there is actually an important principle behind it: digital systems must not only imitate analog protection mechanisms, they must reinforce them.
Sealed ballots and digitally locked election results give organizations more control over the most sensitive moment of every election: the announcement of results. With sealed voting, a finely graduated role concept and clear logging, NemoVote strengthens the independence of election committees - and makes digital elections even more trustworthy.
If you would like to know whether sealed voting makes sense for your next election, please contact us - we will help you find the right level of security for your scenario.