Watermarking Votes in the 2020 Election

John Hauer
4 min readNov 5, 2020

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Could the combination of digital watermarking and blockchain technology help reduce or eliminate election fraud?

It is now rumored that some or all of the paper ballots in the 2020 election were watermarked. There are no facts to support this theory, so please don’t take this article as some kind of endorsement. It’s not.

WHAT IS DIGITAL WATERMARKING?

When thinking about “watermarking” we might not all be on the same page. Most people envision some kind of visual image, as you might see on a check or currency. But digital watermarks aren’t really that visible at all. Instead, they are is a series of microscopic dots (pixels) that provide a lot of information about the page being printed.

What kind of information? Well, for starters they can tell you when and where a document was printed, and possibly, even by whom. Like every other pixel on a digital page, they can also be personalized.

To assist in anti-counterfeiting efforts, most copier and printer manufacturers already watermark each document. The data from one of those watermarks might have even helped authorities discover the source of a national intelligence leak.

Digital watermark with yellow dots.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, here’s what those dots really show:

The date in the microdots is 6:20 2017/05/09 from a printer with serial number #5429535218

HOW DOES BLOCKCHAIN HELP?

I’ve written a lot about how blockchain might benefit the 3D printing industry, but it can serve similar purposes with 2D printing. Blockchain not only allows you to create a secure ID or hash for each personalized watermark, it also provides for chain of custody, further helping verify the document’s authenticity. For those reasons and more, it’s almost impossible to counterfeit a blockchain-enabled watermark.

HOW COULD IT WORK

Here’s the big problem. Each state manages its own elections. Most use paper ballots, but some don’t. Of those who do, some print those ballots in-house and some outsource. Multiple different printer makes and models are used to print the ballots. Somehow you’d need to get access to all those machines and install the code that generates the watermarks.

There are a few different ways. You could install it at the factory, or in the field. After all, every one of these devices is connected. If you were trying to be discrete, you could also use a back-door approach, hacking the code onto each device.

HOW COULD IT HELP IDENTIFY VOTER FRAUD?

For starters, it would determine the legitimacy of a ballot. No watermark, no vote. Further, the normal everyday watermark on a counterfeit might give authorities information about when and where it was actually printed.

Also, as mentioned above, if a ballot does contain a legitimate watermark, it most certainly would provide the date, time, and unique machine ID. But it could also provide much more, including the name of the person who printed the job, and whether it was a first-run or a reprint. If it had access to voter registration data, it could even confirm a data match.

SCANNING TAKES IT EVEN FURTHER

Let’s say you could install code on every printer used to print ballots. If so, would it really be that hard to install code on every machine that scans them in?

If so, you’d have all the data from the watermark, but you could potentially capture the scanned content as well. If you did that…well, you’d not only know when the ballot was scanned and by whom, you’d also know the identity of the voter. With a quick cross-reference against voter registration, DMV, and other databases, you’d know whether or not they are living or dead, or even if they voted more than once. Obviously, you’d also know how they voted.

IS IT REAL?

At this point, who knows? While I am not saying that paper votes have been watermarked, I am saying they certainly could be. If they are, buckle up because things might get really interesting.

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John Hauer is a 30 year veteran of both the 2D and 3D printing industries. He’s worked for Xerox (twice!) and for several large commercial printers and direct mail houses. As a technology journalist, John focuses primarily on the topics of 3D printing, blockchain, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and automation. His original content has been featured on Forbes, TechCrunch, Futurism, QZ.com, Techfaster.com, 3DPrint.com, and Fabbaloo, among others.

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John Hauer

John Hauer is a noted thought leader on 3D printing and other emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, virtual reality and IoT, among others.