Abstract

For centuries, we have largely taken democratic process for granted and placed trust in the paper ballot approach to casting and counting votes. In reality, the democratic process is one of considerable fragility. This was recognized at the dawn of democracy: the Ancient Greeks devised mechanical devices to try to sidestep the need to place trust in officials.

For over a century, the US has been using technological approaches to recording and counting votes, level machines, punch cards, optical readers, touch screen machines, largely in response to widespread corruption with paper ballots. In the last few years, the UK has been experimenting with alternative voting technologies.

In this talk I will discuss approaches to achieving assurance of accuracy and privacy in election systems. In particular I will present a cryptographic scheme that has the remarkable property of providing voters with the opportunity to verify that their vote is accurately counted whilst still ensuring the secrecy of their ballot. At the same time, minimal trust need be placed in the technology or officials.

Poorly conceived, implemented and maintained voting technology poses a serious threat to democracy. Confidence in the integrity of voting systems appears to be at an all time low in the US for example. Schemes with a high degree of transparency such as the one proposed here hold out the hope of restoring some of that confidence. In the words of Silvio Micali "It is our duty as good cryptographers to save democracy!"

Thursday, 7th April 2005