A proposal for the use of blockchain in the portuguese voting system

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Knowledge Management and Business IntelligenceThe key objective of this proposal is to present one of the problems that the Portuguese economy, as well as other European countries, have been facing in regard to the civil society intervention in the democracy: the decrease of turnover rates in the voting system. The main objective is to propose the use of Blockchain technology in the Portuguese Voting System, as a mechanism to counter this trend. In order to understand how the possible application of a remote e-voting system succeeds, Estonia was selected as the case of study. Its architecture, as well as the legal, social and technological issues and challenges associated are investigated in the light of the information collected in the literature review. Considering the case analysis and discussion, a set of recommendations that purpose the use of a remote electronic voting system in the Portuguese electoral system are presented and a critical analysis about the introduction of a Blockchain algorithm is made. This dissertation concludes about the advantages and disadvantages from the use of this decentralized system when compared with a system involving a third-party as the one used in the Estonian I-Voting. The validation is based on interviews and discussions with professors in the area of information systems and law, and also with a contribution of a Digital adviser of the Estonian e-Governance model

Election Surveillance

For most of this country\u27s history, we have relied on human eyes and ears to oversee our system of elections. Modern surveillance tools, from cell phones to video streaming platforms, are now cheap and ubiquitous. Technology holds great promise to increase election transparency. But the 2020 election confirmed what has become quite clear: the use of technology to record election processes does not always serve the goal of reassuring the public of the integrity of elections; in fact, it can do the opposite. As legislatures around the country reexamine rules governing elections following the 2020 election, an underexplored question is whether election surveillance should be promoted or curbed. The line between democracy-enhancing election transparency and civil liberty-trampling election surveillance is fuzzy. This Article examines the history and present of election surveillance and reviews legislation and litigation surrounding it. The goal is to better understand how election surveillance can promote confidence in election outcomes while dodging the dark sides of both transparency and surveillance. As historic levels of public mistrust of election outcomes threaten American democracy, Election Surveillance examines these urgent questions

The Machinery of Democracy: Voting System Security, Accessibility, Usability, and Cost

This report is the final product of the first comprehensive, empirical analysis of electronic voting systems in the United States. It comes after nearly two years of study with many of the nations leading academics, election officials, economists, and security, usability and accessibility experts.Up until this point, there has been surprisingly little empirical study of voting systems in the areas of security, accessibility, usability, and cost. The result is that jurisdictions make purchasing decisions and adopt laws and procedures that have little to do with their overall goals.The Brennan Center analysis finds that there is not yet any perfect voting system or set of procedures. One system might be more affordable, but less accessible to members of the disabled community; certain election procedures might make the systems easier to use, but they compromise security. Election officials and community members should be aware of the trade-offs when choosing one voting system or set of procedures over another, and they should know how to improve the system they choose.Included in this full report is an executive summary of the Brennan Centers analysis of voting system security, voting system usability, as well as voting system accessibility and cost.The Brennan Center analysis of cost is in part based upon a review of voting system contracts provided by jurisdictions around the country and a cost calculator [no longer available]. The cost calculator and contracts should assist jurisdictions in determining the initial on ongoing costs of various voting systems

Secret texts and cipherballots: secret suffrage and remote electronic voting

Una de les principals preocupacions sobre el vot telemàtic és com preservar el sufragi secret. La llista d’estudis que afirmen que el vot per Internet és incompatible amb el secret del vot és força extensa. Si bé estudis posteriors sobre experiències reals han tingut resultats més matisats, les preocupacions sobre el sufragi secret i el vot telemàtic es mantenen. Abordar aquestes preocupacions esdevé una obligació ineludible. En aquest context, la nostra recerca és novadora. En primer lloc, el nostre punt de partida no es basa en definicions legals preexistents que s'accepten com a donades. Partint de l'enfocament universalista del dret constitucional comparat, hem entès que el principi del sufragi secret transcendeix les opinions i convencions lligades a comunitats polítiques concretes. Aquesta concepció comú i bàsica s'ha traduït en tres estàndards: individualitat, confidencialitat i anonimat. Aquests estàndards s’han de satisfer en qualsevol canal de votació. En segon lloc, hem adoptat un enfocament més ampli en l’aplicació d’aquest principi al vot telemàtic. Hem demostrat que el sufragi secret es pot garantir mitjançant la llei, el codi informàtic, les normes i fins i tot el mercat. La normativa actual tendeix a ser limitada perquè recorre a analogies amb els canals de votació en paper i no reconeix les especificitats del vot telemàtic. Per contra, aquí hem examinat el paper que exerceixen (i les limitacions pròpies) del xifrat asimètric, l'anonimització basada en mix-nets o el recompte homomòrfic, i el vot múltiple.Una de las principales preocupaciones sobre el voto telemático es cómo garantizar el secreto del voto. La lista de autores que afirman que el voto por Internet es incompatible con el sufragio secreto es considerable. Aunque las conclusiones de estudios posteriores sobre experiencias reales hayan sido más matizadas, las preocupaciones sobre el sufragio secreto y el voto telemático se mantienen. Abordar estas preocupaciones constituye en una obligación ineludible. En este contexto, nuestra investigación es novedosa. En primer lugar, nuestro punto de partida no se basa en definiciones legales preexistentes que se aceptan como dadas. Partiendo del enfoque universalista del derecho constitucional comparado, hemos entendido que el principio del sufragio secreto trasciende las opiniones y convenciones ligadas a la cultura de comunidades políticas concretas. Esta concepción se ha traducido en tres normas: individualidad, confidencialidad y anonimato. Estas normas deberían aplicarse a cualquier canal de votación. En segundo lugar, hemos adoptado un enfoque más amplio sobre la aplicación de este principio. Hemos demostrado que el sufragio secreto puede garantizarse mediante la ley, el código, las normas e incluso el mercado. La normativa actual tiende a ser limitada porque recurre a analogías con los canales de votación en papel y no reconoce las especificidades del voto telemático.One of the key concerns about remote electronic voting is how to preserve secret suffrage. The list of authors who claim that Internet voting is incompatible with the secrecy of the vote is actually quite long. Even if later studies that analysed the actual implementation of remote electronic voting in public political elections had more nuanced findings, concerns about secret suffrage and remote electronic voting remain. Addressing these concerns becomes an inescapable obligation. In this context, our research is quite novel. First and foremost, our starting point is not based on pre-existing legal definitions that are accepted as given. Drawing from the universalist approach to comparative constitutional law, we have understood that the principle of secret suffrage exists in such a way that it transcends the culture bound opinions and conventions of particular political communities. This core understanding has been translated into three standards: individuality, confidentiality, and anonymity. These standards should apply to any voting channel. Second, we have taken a wider approach at the enforcement of this principle. We have showed that secret suffrage may be enforced through law, code, norms, and even the market. Current regulations tend to be constrained because they resort to analogies with paper-based voting channels and fail to acknowledge the specificities of remote electronic voting. In contrast, we have examined the role played by (and the limitations of) asymmetric encryption, anonymization based on mix-nets or homomorphic tallying, and of multiple voting to enforce secret suffrage

Electronic voting: Methods and protocols

The act of casting a ballot during an election cycle has been plagued by a number of problems, both intrinsic and extraneous. The old-fashioned paper ballot solves a number of problems, but creates its own. The clear 21st Century solution is the use of an automated electronic system for collection and tallying of votes, but the attitude of the general populace towards these systems has been overwhelmingly negative, supported in some cases by fraud and abuse. The purpose of this thesis is to do a broad survey of systems available on the market now (both in industry and academia) and then compare and contrast these systems to an “ideal” system, which we attempt to define. To do this we survey academic and commercial literature from many sources and selected the most popular, current, or interesting of the designs—then compare the relative strengths and weaknesses of these designs. What we discovered is that devices presented by industry are not only closed-box (which makes them inherently untrustworthy), but also largely inept in security and/or redundancy. Conversely, systems presented by academia are relatively strong in security and redundancy, but lack in ease-of-use or miss helpful features found on industry devices. To combat these perceived weaknesses, we present a prototype of one system which has not previously been implemented, described in Wang [1]. This system brings together many ideas from academia to solve a significant number of the issues plaguing electronic voting machines. We present this solution in its entirety as open-source software for review by the cryptographic and computer science community. In addition to an electronic voting implementation this solution includes a graphical user interface, a re-encryption mix network, and several decryption methods including threshold decryption. All of these items are described in-depth by this thesis. However, as we discuss in the conclusion, this solution falls short in some areas as well. We earmark these problem areas for future research and discuss alternate paths forward

Towards internet voting in the state of Qatar

Qatar is a small country in the Middle East which has used its oil wealth to invest in the country's infrastructure and education. The technology for Internet voting now exists or can be developed, but are the people of Qatar willing to take part in Internet voting for national elections?. This research identifies the willingness of government and citizens to introduce and participate in Internet voting (I-voting) in Qatar and the barriers that may be encountered when doing so. A secure I voting model for the Qatar government is then proposed that address issues of I-voting which might arise due to the introduction of such new technology. Recommendations are made for the Qatar government to assist in the introduction of I-voting. The research identifies the feasibility of I-voting and the government s readiness and willingness to introduce it. Multiple factors are examined: the voting experience, educational development, telecommunication development, the large number of Internet users, Qatar law which does not bar the use of I-voting and Qatar culture which supports I-voting introduction. It is shown that there is a willingness amongst both the people and the government to introduce I-voting, and there is appropriate accessibility, availability of IT infrastructure, availability of Internet law to protect online consumers and the existence of the e government project. However, many Qataris have concerns of security, privacy, usability, transparency and other issues that would need to be addressed before any voting system could be considered to be a quality system in the eyes of the voters. Also, the need to consider the security threat associated on client-side machines is identified where a lack of user awareness on information security is an important factor. The proposed model attempts to satisfy voting principles, introducing a secure platform for I-voting using best practices and solutions such as the smart card, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and digital certificates. The model was reviewed by a number of experts on Information Technology, and the Qatari culture and law who found that the system would, generally, satisfy voting principles, but pointed out the need to consider the scalability of the model, the possible cyber-attacks and the risks associated with voters computers. which could be reduced by enhancing user awareness on security and using secure operating systems or Internet browsers. From these findings, a set of recommendations were proposed to encourage the government to introduce I-voting which consider different aspects of I-voting, including the digital divide, e-literacy, I voting infrastructure, legal aspects, transparency, security and privacy. These recommendations were also reviewed by experts who found them to be both valuable and effective. Since literature on Internet voting in Qatar is sparse, empirical and non-empirical studies were carried out in a variety of surveys, interviews and experiments. The research successfully achieved its aim and objectives and is now being considered by the Qatari Government

A novel smart contract based blockchain with sidechain for electronic voting

Several countries have been researching digital voting methods in order to overcome the challenges of paper balloting and physical voting. The recent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic has compelled the remote implementation of existing systems and procedures. Online voting will ultimately become the norm just like unified payments interface (UPI) payments and online banking. With digital voting or electronic voting (e-voting) a small bug can cause massive vote rigging. E-voting must be honest, exact, safe, and simple. E-voting is vulnerable to malware, which can disrupt servers. Blockchain’s end-to-end validation solves these problems. Three smart contracts-voter, candidate, and voting-are employed. The problem of fraudulent actions is addressed using vote coins. Vote coins indicate voter status. Sidechain technology complements blockchain. Sidechains improve blockchain functionality by performing operations outside of blockchains and delivering the results to the mainchain. Thus, storing the encrypted vote on the sidechain and using the decrypted result on the mainchain reduces cost. Building access control policies to grant only authorized users’ access to the votes for counting is made simpler by this authorization paradigm. Results of the approach depict the proposed e-voting system improves system security against replay attacks and reduces the processing cost as well as processing time

Designing and generating prototype for E-Governance based election strategy using biometric authentication and smart card device

Not availabl