Public Evidence from Secret Ballots

TL;DR

This paper explores the complex balance between security, privacy, and practicality in electronic voting systems, analyzing how current solutions address these competing requirements.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of existing voting systems, highlighting how they manage the trade-offs between election integrity and voter privacy.

Findings

Current systems employ cryptographic techniques to ensure vote secrecy.

Many systems face challenges balancing security with usability.

The paper identifies gaps in existing approaches to election integrity and privacy.

Abstract

Elections seem simple---aren't they just counting? But they have a unique, challenging combination of security and privacy requirements. The stakes are high; the context is adversarial; the electorate needs to be convinced that the results are correct; and the secrecy of the ballot must be ensured. And they have practical constraints: time is of the essence, and voting systems need to be affordable and maintainable, and usable by voters, election officials, and pollworkers. It is thus not surprising that voting is a rich research area spanning theory, applied cryptography, practical systems analysis, usable security, and statistics. Election integrity involves two key concepts: convincing evidence that outcomes are correct and privacy, which amounts to convincing assurance that there is no evidence about how any given person voted. These are obviously in tension. We examine how current systems walk this tightrope.