Technical Details on Electronic Voting Using Cryptography

by Dr. Kazue Sako, NEC Corporation, Japan

Abstract

The three main requirements for a voting protocol are 1) detecting unauthorized voters, 2) detecting faulty voting centers and 3) ensuring anonymity of votes. In this presentation we will discuss three different approaches to constructing voting protocols that meet these requirements, and compare their advantages and disadvantages. Also discussed will be the issues of vote tally verifiability and the receipt-free property of votes, i.e., how to ensure that voters who can verify that their vote has been counted can not misuse the protocol to “sell” their vote with a “receipt”. A key point in the discussion will be what conditions are necessary to construct a verifiable, yet receipt-free voting system.

The presenter assumes that participants have background knowledge on public key cryptosystems and zero-knowledge proofs.