Secure Electronic Voting

Secure Electronic Voting

Abstract

Elections need to be trustworthy, and to be seen to be trustworthy, in order for the electorate to have confidence in their outcomes. The introduction of technology into the electoral process brings potential new benefits, but may also increase the risk that accidental flaws or security weaknesses in the equipment leave an election open to tampering. Voting systems, whether run manually or on machines, should provide voters with the ability to cast a private vote, and to have confidence that their vote is really included in the final tally.

The Prêt à Voter electronic voting system is designed to provide these properties, and some further ones known as end-to-end verifiability, not currently present in standard UK elections: a receipt for the voters so that they can check their vote has been included in the tally, and can prove if it has not; and publication of the votes so that the count can be independently checked. This is achieved by making public all the stages in the processing of the votes, enabling the election to be audited independently. All this is possible while maintaining secrecy of the vote. Although electronic support for the election is necessary, the electronic components do not themselves need to be trusted because their outputs can be independently audited.