Abstract:

Voting systems provide the bedrock of democracy. Recently, voting systems and technologies have been the subject of considerable attention, for example, the concerns raised about the legitimacy of the 2000 and 2004 US presidential elections or about postal voting in this country. Designing voting technologies and systems that are trustworthy, practical and acceptable to the various stakeholders (electorate, politicians, election officials, security experts etc.) raises formidable challenges.

In this talk I will describe the Prêt à Voter scheme. This scheme, based on an earlier scheme due to Chaum, has the surprising property of voter-verifiability: voters can confirm that their vote is accurately included in the tally, whilst at the same time preserving ballot secrecy. This is achieved with minimal dependence on components of the system by providing maximal transparency within the constraints of ballot secrecy.

I will discuss some of the assumptions underlying the current scheme, and associated potential vulnerabilities, and describe possible countermeasures. I will also describe coercion-resistant adaptations of the original, supervised scheme to the remote voting context.

slides