Using Human Trustees and the Trustee Application
This guide will take you through how to configure the Threshold ceremony to include Human Trustees. Before getting started it is recommended to read the section on Threshold Ceremony to understand how the ceremony works.
Before using the Human Trustee app, you will need to prepare Electa to work with human trustees.
Make sure that “Skip automatic E2E initiation“ is toggled on. Refer to subsection Setup for more information.
Go to the “E2E“ tab in the left-hand side menu.
Click “Start ceremony”. You will then see the page as shown below:
Now, you need to select “Invite human trustee” from the “Add trustee” dropdown menu.
Fill in the trustee's “Name” and “Email.” Additionally, if more locales are set up, you can select in which language the email will be sent (this does not change the language of the app - which will still be only in english). When you are done, click
to send the invite.
All trustees will have now received an email with registration instructions as well as their unique trustee-key code.
Once all necessary trustees have been invited to the system, they can now register in the app using the email invitation code.
Start by downloading the app here.
Open the application and you should see:
Click the “Register as trustee“ button, and you will be redirected to a new page to start the registration process.
Insert the invitation code you received via email in the textbox field. See below an example of an email:
4. Click “Connect and choose location“ and select where you want to save the trustee-key file on your local device (eg. a laptop). Store this file safely and privately, as this file contains the trustee’s cryptographic identity. *If you wish to save the trustee-key file in a remote device, such as a USB stick, make sure to only do that after the registration process is done to avoid failure to save the file properly.
This will now connect the trustee to the election.
The election admin will proceed to the next step of the threshold ceremony which is setting up the minimum requirements of attending trustees, whether system trustees or human trustees.
Once the election admin, sets the minimum number of trustees and that threshold is met, the Threshold Ceremony will finalize. This progress can be followed along in the Human Trustee app as well.
In Electa’s backend:
In the Human Trustee app:
In the Human Trustee app, you can see the progress of the process in the side menu:
Once the ceremony is finished you can close the application and take a backup of your trustee file before closing the device. It is your responsibility to ensure that a backup file is copied correctly to an external device. Please compare the contents of the file (e.g,, through a text editor program) to confirm the backup file is identical to the original file. Failing to provide an intact trustee file may result into the election results cannot be extracted.
2.1. Video Guide
In the Human Trustee app, trustees can follow the progress of the Threshold Ceremony and results generation processes. This means that a certain number of trustees (the number depends on the specific election’s set threshold) need to be connected to the election to both start the threshold ceremony and generate election results (please note that these two processes only happen inside Electa).
3.1. Reconnect to the election
When a trustee has already registered as a trustee before, they will need to reconnect to the election through the app by clicking “Existing Trustee“ on the app’s front page every time they need to use it.
Start by clicking “Existing Trustee“.
Now you will need to locate your trustee-key file (which you stored in your local device in Step 2). Click “Browse for trustee-key file to connect“ and choose your trustee-key file.
You will be able to see the location of the selected file.
Proceed to click “Reconnect“.
Once connected to the election, a trustee will be able to follow the election progress from the app. Inside the app, it is possible to see all ballots that exist currently in the election as well as the number of trustees that are presently connected.
3.2. Generating results
To generate results, all needed trustees need to have the app open and be connected to the election (this is shown by the green circles next to the trustee’s name in the E2E tab).
As the results extraction starts, the progress can be followed step-by-step in the app.
In Electa’s backend:
In the Human Trustee app:
The results will only be presented in Electa’s backend. However, they can be made visible to trustees by clicking on the “Make public” button after generating the results. The “Make public” process in Live Conference mode will make the results visible for both voters in the frontend and trustees in the Human Trustee app; whereas in Scheduled Voting, it will make the results only visible to trustees in the Human Trustee app
3.3. Video Guide