Contribution of Herv{\'e} Suaudeau for the mission of the French Senate Law Commission on electronic voting on 25 January 2018

TL;DR

This paper examines whether electronic voting systems can meet France's constitutional requirements for universal, equal, and secret voting, highlighting significant risks to voter anonymity and security.

Contribution

The paper provides a critical analysis of electronic voting's compatibility with constitutional principles, emphasizing inherent risks to vote secrecy and security.

Findings

Electronic voting intrinsically risks voter anonymity.

No recent terminal guarantees connection anonymity.

Electronic voting systems cannot ensure constitutional secrecy.

Abstract

This contribution investigate the compatibility between the use of dematerialised voting and Article 3 of the french Constitution, which stipulates that 'voting must always be universal, equal and secret'. The IT risk management of electronic voting is managed in a rational way like any other risk management areas. We are therefore prepared to accept the use of a non dematerialised technique to cover a significant, well-identified and unavoidable risk. However, research has shown that a verifiable dematerialized vote intrinsically loses its anonymity. In addition, a study of the history of vulnerabilities shows that no terminal in recent years has been able to guarantee the anonymity of its connection and that personal voting data has always been potentially exposed. Electronic voting systems are therefore, to the best of our knowledge, unable to provide the required constitutional guarantee.