The University of Warwick’s pioneering Self-Enforcing E-Voting (SEEV) technology has been successfully used in a real-world election for the first time at the UNITA Students Assembly elections, assuring accuracy and verifiability of the vote tally while preserving anonymity.

When you next go to the polls, how can you be truly sure your vote has been counted correctly?

The current election process relies heavily on trust. It doesn’t matter whether you voted by paper ballot, post, or e-voting, existing voting systems require you to trust the integrity of the tallying process, which is something you cannot personally verify. Unverifiable e-voting systems are known as “black-box” systems and carry an inherent risk that a hacker may modify the tally without anyone noticing.

SEEV, an innovative solution developed by the Universities of Warwick and Newcastle, combats the problem of fraud and mistrust in an e-voting system. This technology has been deployed in several pilots, but SEEV recently saw its first real-world application at the inaugural UNITA Students Assembly elections, with over 100 thousand electors.

Feng Hao, Professor of Security Engineering at Warwick and CEO of SEEV Technologies Ltd said: “Since 2013, with the initial support from an ERC starting grant, we have been researching a new paradigm of secure e-voting systems called “self-enforcing e-voting” (SEEV), where every voter is an observer and can independently verify the tallying integrity of an election. It is a unique technology that can be integrated with existing (unverifiable) e-voting platforms to make a step change in security, providing end-to-end verifiability to assure the integrity of the entire ballot casting, recording and tallying process.

“Now, I’m very pleased to see the first real-world use of SEEV, in partnership with Eligo eVoting and Global Initiative, to support online voting in UNITA elections. The successful integration with the Eligo eVoting platform is a milestone for SEEV. I look forward to further collaborations with Eligo and Global Initiative to make digital voting more trustworthy. This is of great importance for the future of democracy.”

SEEV works by providing you with a receipt once you cast your vote. The receipt allows you to verify that your vote has been cast as you intended, while also preventing third parties from snooping on who you voted for. The receipt also allows you to verify that your vote has been recorded as cast and tallied as recorded – known as being end-to-end (E2E) verifiable.

Typically, in an E2E verifiable voting system, the receipts are encrypted and decrypted by a group of tallying authorities during the tally. SEEV removes the need for tallying authorities by using novel cryptographical techniques, such that the system is ‘self-enforcing’. Once the election is finished, the tally is instantly available together with all receipts to allow every voter to verify the tally.

In the UNITA elections, a multilingual online voting platform developed by Eligo was chosen, and by integrating a SEEV gateway in the back end, E2E verifiability was also introduced. Voters were authenticated through their institutional logon credentials, and their anonymity was protected by the separation of the Eligo server and the SEEV gateway, which were independently managed by two different companies.

Irene Pugliatti, CEO of Eligo eVoting said: “We are proud to support universities like those in the UNITA Alliance in their mission to foster democratic participation and civic engagement. Verifiability and low coercion are essential pillars of any trustworthy voting process — especially in academic communities where inclusiveness, autonomy, and transparency are not just values but educational tools. By ensuring that every vote counts and can be independently verified, we help create safe spaces for deliberation and empower future citizens to take part in governance with confidence and freedom.”

This innovative, fully digital voting process empowered thousands of students to shape the future of their universities, ensuring that their voices were heard in key decision-making spaces. The Eligo/SEEV system fostered a responsive, and truly representative election process that sets a valuable precedent for future democratic initiatives within academic institutions.

Edoardo Miserere, President of the Constituent Student Assembly of UNITA Alliance said: “Universities are pillars that uphold society, and we must create an inclusive and democratic environment to respect and secure the rights of our community, while ensuring the development of its members into active and conscious citizens. Ensuring the broadest possible inclusion in decision-making leads to better, more effective policies. Diverse perspectives, experiences, and interests contribute to more comprehensive problem-solving, increased legitimacy, and stronger social cohesion.”

ENDS

University of Warwick press office contact:

Matt Higgs – Media & Communications Officer (Sciences)

Matt.Higgs@warwick.ac.uk | +44 (0) 7880175403

General and out of hours press office number +44 (0)7392 125605 (please call as emails are not checked out of office hours)

Notes to Editors

About SEEV:

SEEV Technologies Ltd is a spin-out from the University of Warwick and Newcastle University, where original research on self-enforcing e-voting (SEEV) was conducted with the support of funding from ERC, Innovate UK and the Royal Society. The company was formed in 2023 as a joint venture with Global Initiative. SEEV is dedicated to supporting end-to-end verifiable e-voting for future elections.

About UNITA:

UNITA is an alliance of universities and a legal entity (UNITA GEIE) from seven countries with different sizes and trajectories gathering nearly 250,000 students and 21,000 staff members. The UNITA Universities are in rural, mountain, and cross-border regions across Southern, Western and Central-Eastern Europe, in ecosystems sharing similar challenges and impacted by core-periphery dynamics.

The UNITA GEIE (UNITA European Economic Interest Grouping) is a starting point towards a new model of legal entity serving the purposes of European universities. Through this tool we will design the trajectory to transform the alliance into an institutionalised European university that deals with UNITA assets, accelerates policy convergence, facilitates the pooling of resources and houses universities that keep their autonomy.

About Eligo eVoting:

Eligo is a globally recognized e-voting platform with over 20 years of experience supporting structured and legally compliant elections. It focuses on universities but also serves a wide range of organizations, including companies, cooperatives, unions, associations, councils, and public institutions. Eligo offers full support for remote, in-person, or hybrid voting, ensuring transparency, confidentiality, and auditability. From candidate registration to final reporting, Eligo manages every phase of the election. Proven across thousands of elections, Eligo delivers results that are trusted, valid, and effective.

About Global Initiative:

Global Initiative is an end-to-end software development house specialising in security and digital health. We are extremely proud to have worked with Warwick Innovations and Professor Hao in building SEEV and witnessing it being employed across such a wide cohort. We are looking forward to implementing more voting mechanisms and pushing for the urgent changes that secure digital voting needs worldwide.

About the University of Warwick:

The University of Warwick is one of the UK’s leading universities, marking its 60th anniversary in 2025. With over twenty-eight thousand students from 147 countries, it is currently ranked 9th in the UK by The Guardian University Guide. It has an acknowledged reputation for excellence in research and teaching, for innovation, and for links with business and industry. The recent Research Excellence Framework classed 92% of its research as ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’. The University of Warwick was awarded Midlands University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times.