TetraVote — Research Prototype for Post-Quantum-Resilient, Zero-Knowledge Election Models
Bibliographic record
Abstract
TetraVote is an experimental voting-system prototype developed to explore how post-quantum algorithms, zero-knowledge proofs, and offline-first distributed systems can support secure, privacy-preserving election workflows in low-infrastructure environments. This framework is not a production voting system.It is a simulation environment designed for: academic research prototyping testing of post-quantum design ideas distributed computing coursework exploration of secure election protocols The project does not implement real cryptographic security guarantees and should not be used for administration of actual elections. Purpose TetraVote was created as part of an exploratory submission to the University of Saskatchewan (UofS) / SK-NEIHR Spring Institute 2025.Its purpose is to demonstrate how emerging cryptographic approaches—such as zk-proofs and PQC—could be modeled in small-scale election simulations. The prototype specifically supports research into: privacy-preserving credential generation anonymous vote submission local-only ledger validation offline-first deployment using containerization distributed verification without centralized infrastructure Research Context This prototype is intended for: secure computing research distributed systems education academic exploration of post-quantum concepts The framework models how small or remote communities could explore secure voting workflows without cloud dependencies, relying solely on local devices or air-gapped networks. No real-world elections should rely on this prototype. Architecture Overview TetraVote integrates several research components from the broader Tetra ecosystem: 1. Credential & Identity Simulation Scripts prototype: anonymous credential derivation hash-based identity proof generation zero-knowledge witness creation offline-verifiable vote tokens These mechanisms use classical cryptography and are not PQC-secure; the PQC modules remain conceptual placeholders for future R&D. 2. Ledger & Audit Model Votes are written to a local encrypted JSON-based ledger: TetraChain.json The ledger structure enables: transparent counting offline audit non-linkability (simulated) 3. Zero-Knowledge Proof Experiments The ZK/ directory includes: a Groth16 example circuit sample proof scripts verification routines This module allows exploration of how ZKPs can separate identity from voter action. 4. Mesh & Distributed System Simulation The /Mesh and /Core modules provide early-stage, non-functional prototypes exploring: peer-to-peer message passing potential integration with TetraYggdrasil-Nexus state propagation in partially connected environments These components are conceptual and not operational. 5. Optional Podman Deployment The deploy_codex_podman.sh script demonstrates: local-only, isolated container deployment reproducible execution environments safe experimentation on offline machines Included Files File Purpose generate_credential.py Creates anonymous credential hashes submit_vote.py Submits simulated votes audit_votes.py Verifies ledger totals TetraChain.json Local ledger file check_zk_env.sh Ensures ZK module prerequisites run_zk_trust_proof.sh Executes sample ZK workflow start.sh Launches prototype interface Intended Applications (Research Only) This prototype may be useful for studying: digital governance in remote communities voting-system data flows offline-first secure computing proof-of-concept election workflows zero-knowledge and PQC interactions decentralized auditability mechanisms It is ideal for simulation exercises related to: small organizations or councils local board elections community advisory voting campus research experiments Again: not for real-world operational elections. License MIT License (software) Encourages research, modification, and academic reuse. No warranties or security guarantees. Important Disclaimer TetraVote v1.0/v1.1 is: a research prototype non-audited not suitable for real elections not intended for government, defense, or security operations not designed for legal, political, or institutional deployment All responsibility for use lies with the experimental user.The author develops Baramay Station research projects exclusively for civilian, academic, and scientific exploration. How the Tetra Ecosystem Relates TetraVote is built on top of early R&D modules, including: TetraCrypt-PQC-Nexus (experimental PQC-inspired hashing/encoding) TetraYggdrasil_Nexus (experimental P2P mesh simulation) TetraCrypt_Yggdrasil_Unified (integrated prototype) TetraNexus (coordination layer prototype) All of these are research tools, not functional security systems.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".