# Distributed Protocols at the Rescue for Trustworthy Online Voting

## TL;DR

This paper explores the potential of distributed, blockchain-inspired online voting protocols to enhance security and trustworthiness without relying on trusted authorities, emphasizing their robustness and alignment with paper-based voting.

## Contribution

It introduces a taxonomy of distributed online voting notions and analyzes blockchain-based protocols as promising solutions for secure, trustless online voting.

## Key findings

- Blockchain protocols resemble paper voting in security features
- Distributed protocols increase robustness by removing single points of failure
- Blockchain-based online voting shows promising security properties

## Abstract

While online services emerge in all areas of life, the voting procedure in many democracies remains paper-based as the security of current online voting technology is highly disputed. We address the issue of trustworthy online voting protocols and recall therefore their security concepts with its trust assumptions. Inspired by the Bitcoin protocol, the prospects of distributed online voting protocols are analysed. No trusted authority is assumed to ensure ballot secrecy. Further, the integrity of the voting is enforced by all voters themselves and without a weakest link, the protocol becomes more robust. We introduce a taxonomy of notions of distribution in online voting protocols that we apply on selected online voting protocols. Accordingly, blockchain-based protocols seem to be promising for online voting due to their similarity with paper-based protocols.