Towards Verifiable Remote Voting with Paper Assurance
Eleanor McMurtry, Xavier Boyen, Chris Culnane, Kristian, Gj{\o}steen, Thomas Haines, Vanessa Teague

TL;DR
This paper introduces a protocol for remote voting that combines paper ballots with cryptographic verification, enabling voters to verify their votes are correctly recorded while maintaining some privacy protections.
Contribution
It presents the first system to combine paper assurance with cryptographic verification in a passively receipt-free remote voting protocol.
Findings
Voters can verify their votes were correctly recorded.
The system detects manipulation by adversaries controlling either the device or postal service.
It is the first to combine paper assurance with cryptographic verification in a receipt-free manner.
Abstract
We propose a protocol for verifiable remote voting with paper assurance. It is intended to augment existing postal voting procedures, allowing a ballot to be electronically constructed, printed on paper, then returned in the post. It allows each voter to verify that their vote has been correctly cast, recorded and tallied by the Electoral Commission. The system is not end-to-end verifiable, but does allow voters to detect manipulation by an adversary who controls either the voting device, or (the postal service and electoral commission) but not both. The protocol is not receipt-free, but if the client honestly follows the protocol (including possibly remembering everything), they cannot subsequently prove how they voted. Our proposal is the first to combine plain paper assurance with cryptographic verification in a (passively) receipt-free manner.
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsInternet Traffic Analysis and Secure E-voting · Cryptography and Data Security · Privacy-Preserving Technologies in Data
